


So Much Better Than I Used To Be

by pinecontents, sohox



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Alternate Universe - Never Met, Alternate Universe - No Girlfriends/No Wives, Coffee Shops, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Mentions of sex work, Slow Burn, engineer!rhett, mentions of drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:33:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 38,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21642988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinecontents/pseuds/pinecontents, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sohox/pseuds/sohox
Summary: It's said that if you meet an asshole, you've met an asshole, but if everyone you meet is an asshole, you're the asshole.Rhett meets an asshole and finds himself strangely drawn to the angry, tightly wound man with bright blue eyes.
Relationships: Rhett McLaughlin/Link Neal
Comments: 167
Kudos: 226





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> @sohox was kind enough to help me with this fic, mostly by writing the sex scenes, but also by letting me bounce ideas off her and encouraging me! She is the best.

Rhett was moving up in the world... literally.

He’d gotten a big promotion at work (he was now _Senior_ Project Manager) that came with an equally big raise as well as a nice sign on bonus, so he moved into a new apartment. A really nice apartment, too. It was on the fifth floor of a converted warehouse, and it had exposed ductwork and brick walls. Rhett couldn’t imagine filling it with his cheap IKEA furniture, so, flush with cash and mad with power, he hired a decorator. Now everything was sleek and modern. He felt like a Bond villain.

There was a sleepy little cafe on the ground floor of the building. Rhett always felt a bit guilty when he went down there to get coffee and a pastry instead of eating in his apartment, but the people watching was so good he felt it more than justified the cost of the meal. Breakfast _and_ a show.

Two bus lines intersected on the street outside the cafe. The north-south bus came by every 15 minutes or so, and dropped people off at one corner. At the other corner, the east-west bus came by every two hours.

After a couple months, Rhett recognized a number of the bus riders, the ones he thought of as his regulars. The spry older lady with the walker, the heavyset man who always wore red shoes, the two teenagers who looked so similar they had to be siblings. He made up little stories about them as he sipped his latte.

If he got to the cafe at just the right time, he could catch the 7:30am east-west bus drop off. Rhett’s favorite regular would get off the east-west bus, walk right by the cafe window, and stand at the other end of the street until he was picked up by the north-south bus.

This was the Cute Guy. He very much deserved the capital letters, even though he wasn’t Rhett’s type at all. He was tall (not as tall as Rhett, but then again, who was?) and slim, with dark hair shaved close on one side and brushed over to the other. One day he happened to walk close enough to the window for Rhett to see that he had bright blue eyes behind his dark rimmed glasses. He wore sneakers and skinny jeans and carried a leather satchel.

Rhett was perfectly aware that it was very middle school of him to have a crush on someone he’d never spoken to, never even been in the same room with, but he couldn’t help it. The Cute Guy was just too cute. Rhett dreamed up scenarios where they’d meet and fall for each other, like something out of a romantic comedy.

But real life didn’t work like that.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The Cute Guy fell for Rhett, alright, but neither of them enjoyed anything about it.

Rhett entered the cafe through the building door, as he did every day. As he rounded the corner of the counter, his phone buzzed in his pocket and as he pulled it out to check, he slammed directly into another person and knocked them to the ground.

This was bad, because Rhett was always very aware of his personal space (he had so much of it) and was always very careful to avoid running into other people or stepping on their feet.

What was worse was the person he knocked over was the Cute Guy, who would have been even cuter close up if he hadn’t been giving Rhett the most hateful, poisonous glare possible. Considering that he had coffee slopped all over his shirt and puddled around him, Rhett couldn’t really blame him.

“I am so sorry,” Rhett began as he reached out to help the Cute Guy up, but his hand was slapped away and the Cute Guy scrambled to his feet without assistance

“Watch where you’re going, asshole!” he spat. “Stupid fucking--”

He was cut off by the barista. “Link, your _bus_!” she called, pointing. “Go go go!” The Cute Guy flipped off Rhett, who noted that his nails were painted some dark color, and ran out the door to catch the bus.

“Nice going,” said the barista. Her name was Dana, and she and Rhett were on pretty friendly terms these days. She came around the counter with a handful of paper towels and offered a few to him. He looked down at his white shirt. There were a few splatters of coffee that he hadn’t even noticed. 

He shook his head, declining the paper towel. “I’m just gonna go back upstairs and change,” he said. Dana nodded and dropped the towels to the floor, stepping on them to soak up the coffee.

“You’re lucky his bus came. He might have tried to fight you otherwise,” she said as she scooped up the sopping towels and dumped them in the trash.

“ _Fight_... do you know that guy?” Rhett demanded, aghast. The last few minutes had seriously messed with his perception.

“Link? Oh, yeah. He’s been around forever.” Dana knelt down and wiped up the last of the coffee spill. “I used to work in the evening, before I started taking night classes. He gets dinner once or twice a week.”

“What’s his _deal_?” 

“Okay, so you know how most people know when to back down from a conflict?” Rhett nodded. “Yeah, well, he doesn’t. I’ve never seen him _start_ shit, but I _have_ seen him chase a cyclist who rode through a puddle and splashed him. Instead of fight or flight, he just has fight or fight.

“Jesus.” Rhett revised his classification of this Link from Cute to Cute but Unstable.

“Yeah, and I bet he holds grudges, so now he’s never gonna like you back.” Dana shrugged. “Sucks to be you.”

Rhett furrowed his brow. “Now how did you...?”

“You sit there and watch him, I stand here and watch you watch him. It’s pretty obvious, especially when the east-west bus is already gone by the time you get here and you’re, like, visibly disappointed.” Dana pulled an exaggerated frowny face.

“Am not.”

“Are so. Go change your shirt, you’re gonna be late. I’ll have your latte ready when you come back down.”

“Thanks, Dana, you’re the best.” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Rhett missed the east-west bus the next morning. Dana smirked at him, but didn’t say anything. 

Her hair was a wavy, chin length bob today. It had taken Rhett almost two months to realize that she cycled through a series of wigs, and he only figured it out when she went from long straight hair, to short curls, to a shaved head over the course of three days, and burst into laughter when he complimented her bold choice.

“Can I ask you a favor?” he asked as he put his cup and plate into the dish return.

“I know you’re bummed about your crush, but I’m not gonna go out with you, Rhett. You’re old enough to be my dad.” She shook her head. “Sorry.”

“Smartass.” He pulled a twenty out of his wallet. “If I give you this, will you make sure it gets used for that guy Link next time he gets dinner? I feel pretty bad about knocking him over. And you can put any change in the tip jar.”

“Sure.” Dana plucked the bill from Rhett’s fingers and pulled some tape from the register to write a note on. “No guarantee he’ll appreciate it, though.”

“No, I guess not.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The two men seemed to deliberately avoid each other for the next few weeks. For his part, Rhett came down to the cafe only after the east-west bus dropped its riders off. A couple times he glimpsed Link getting onto the north-south bus, but that was all.

Link appeared to be avoiding the cafe. Rhett was dying to ask Dana if the money had been used, but he trusted that she’d tell him, and he also didn’t want to seem desperate. Dana probably thought he was enough of a loser already.

Finally, one day she handed him a receipt with his latte. “Oh, I don’t need that,” he said automatically.

Dana thrust it back at him. “It’s a note from Link.”

“Oh!” Rhett grabbed it and flipped it over. Scribbled on the back was:

_Thanks for dinner. Lauren said this was to apologize for knocking me over. Takes a big man to do that. Bribe accepted._

Rhett looked up. “Lauren?”

“You know, with the long blonde hair? Fills in for me sometimes. She was working last night,” Dana said. She nodded at the note. “He must like you if he accepted your apology.”

“He called it a bribe, though.” Rhett tapped the phrase _big man_. “Do you think he’s making fun of me?”

Dana snickered. “Probably. He can be pretty funny.”

There was the imaginary Link Rhett had concocted in his head before running into him (Cute Guy), the Link he’d actually met (Cute but Unstable), and now apparently another Link, who was cute and unstable and funny and...? Rhett really, really wanted to ask Dana more about Link, but that seemed super lame.

So instead, he said something lamer. “If I write a note, will you give...” he trailed off under Dana’s withering gaze.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “No. Absolutely not. I can’t believe you just asked me that. If you wanna flirt with him, you have to ask for his number yourself. My involvement ends _here_.” She punctuated her statement with a slice of her hand.

Rhett sighed. He was too old for this middle school shit.


	2. Chapter 2

The dinner bribe had the effect of returning things to the status quo, at least. Presumably Link started having dinner at the cafe again, and Rhett resumed coming down to the cafe to see the east-west bus drop off its riders, to watch Link walk from one end of the block to the other. Sometimes Link would glance over as he passed, his blue eyes meeting Rhett’s gaze for just a moment, but that was all.

Rhett never did work up the courage to go talk to him, let alone ask for his number.

The cafe served one thing for dinner each day, on a three week rotating schedule. It was the satellite location of a much larger cafe across town, and they sent the food over. The only meal that ever tempted Rhett enough to go downstairs was chicken and dumplings. It was his absolute favorite, and the cafe did it almost as well as his grandmother had.

“Cats and dogs out there tonight,” Lauren observed as she brought over his plate. Outside, the rain poured down ferociously. The window of the cafe was completely covered in a sheet of water. Rhett could vaguely make out the east-west bus pulling up to one end of the street. Just as it opened its door, the north-south bus pulled to the other corner.

An indistinct figure hurtled off the north-south bus and ran towards the east-west bus, which closed its door and pulled away just before the figure reached the stop. They stood on the corner in the pouring rain for a long moment, shoulders slumped in defeat, before turning and coming toward the cafe.

The door jingled as the person came in. Rhett’s eyebrows shot up. It was Link, as soaked as if he’d just climbed out of a swimming pool. He collapsed into a chair, pulled off his glasses, and buried his head in his arms. Water dripped off his clothes and puddled on the floor. Rhett thought he might be crying.

“Oh, poor thing,” Lauren said under her voice. She poured a cup of coffee and set it on the table next to Link. She touched his shoulder gently and said something softly to him ( _on the house_ , Rhett assumed). Link raised his head and nodded at her. He wrapped his hands around the steaming cup and stared down into it.

Rhett was paralyzed. He was across the room from Link, directly in his line of sight. If Link put on his glasses and looked up, he’d see Rhett staring at him, and given their previous interaction, he couldn’t imagine that ending well. He was a little afraid of Link, to be honest.

But Link had missed his bus, and the next one wouldn’t arrive for two hours, and he was completely soaked. He looked miserable. Rhett had a car. He could give him a ride home... if Link would let him.

Rhett decided that if Link was still there by the time he finished eating, he’d offer a ride. Link might call him an asshole, of course, but honestly, what was the worst that could happen? Link _probably_ wouldn’t try to fight him, but if he did, Rhett could take him. He had at least six inches and forty pounds on the other man.

Link was still sitting there, glasses off, hands around his cup, when Rhett finished his chicken and dumplings. He dropped his plate and fork off in the dish return and walked over. Lauren watched with interest.

“Hey,” Rhett said. Link squinted up at him before putting on his glasses. The lenses were speckled with water.

“Yeah?”

Not a bad start, Rhett decided. He forged ahead. “Do you, um, do you want a ride home?”

Link looked up at him, eyebrows raised. A few different expressions flickered across his face. Rhett could tell he was torn between saying yes and telling Rhett to fuck off. He finally narrowed his eyes in suspicion and asked, “Why?”

“What do you mean, ‘why’?” Rhett was baffled. “Because you missed your bus and you’re soaked, that’s why.”

“You still tryin’ to make up for knocking me over?” Why was this guy so fucking defensive?

Rhett shook his head. “You know what, nevermind.” He turned and walked toward the door.

“Wait!” There was the sound of a chair being pushed back.

Rhett turned, exasperated. “ _What_?” Link was standing, one hand held out to Rhett. His rain-darkened hair was still wet enough to drip down his face. He swallowed hard.

“I mean, yes. I would like a ride.”

Rhett stared at him for a moment. All suspicion was gone from Link’s face and he looked sincere. He lowered his hand and added, “Please.”

“Where do you live?” Rhett asked.

“19th and Grand.” It was one of those neighborhoods that Rhett would describe as ‘rapidly gentrifying, but not quite gentrified yet’.

Rhett glanced out the window. The rain had died down to a gentle shower. “Let’s go, then.”

As they left, Lauren was texting furiously behind the counter.

~*~*~*~*~*~

They crossed the street to the parking garage, Link trailing after Rhett. As they got in the car, Rhett noticed that Link was shivering, so he reached over and turned on the heated seat.

Link was quiet for a long time, just looking out the window. Eventually he turned to Rhett and asked, “What’s your name?”

Rhett blinked. He hadn’t realized Link didn’t know. “It’s Rhett. And I know you’re Link. Dana told me.”

“Traitor,” Link mumbled. Rhett stopped at a red light and looked over at him. Link had the tiniest suggestion of a smile on his face. It made Rhett want to see more.

“19th and Grand isn’t on the bus line, is it?”

Link shook his head. “You ever see that show House Hunters?”

Weird question. “Uh, yeah.”

“It’s stupid. The people always have these unrealistic wants for their budget and they have to pick a house that doesn’t meet all their requirements. That was me, but like... the cheap apartment version. I got most of what I wanted, except the eight block walk to the bus stop.” He looked out the window again. “It’s okay, I guess.”

“‘House Hunters: Shitty Apartments’ would be a great show,” Rhett said. He put on his best narrator voice. “‘Megan wants a place close to campus, with in unit laundry and air conditioning. Her budget is eight hundred dollars a month.’ And then she ends up with a place that costs nine hundred and is so far away that she has to buy a car.”

Link laughed. Rhett glanced over. It changed his entire face and took him past Cute Guy to Gorgeous Guy. The smile, combined with his current air of stability, made him incredibly attractive.

“You can drop me here,” Link announced. He pointed to a building at the corner. “That’s my place there.”

“Okay.” Rhett pulled over and parked.

“I’m gonna go take a really, really hot shower. I’m freezing,” Link said. He looked over at Rhett. “Thanks for the ride. It was really nice of you to do that, even after I... well, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” A thought struck Rhett and he pulled out his wallet. He extracted a business card and handed it to Link, who looked at it uncertainly. “It’s got my number. In case you miss the bus and need a ride again.”

“Oh.” Link stuck the card in his damp wallet. “Well, see you around.”

“Have a nice evening.”

“Yeah, you too.” Link got out of the car and disappeared into the building, leaving Rhett alone in the car with nothing but his thoughts and a wet butt-print in the passenger seat.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Dana leaned over the counter as Rhett walked up. “Soooo, how was your date?”

“Beg your pardon?”

“You went home with Link last night!” She waggled her eyebrows at him suggestively.

Rhett scowled at her. “How do you even know about that?”

“Lauren told me. We’ve kiiiiiind of been making bets about it.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “Wow. For your information, I just drove him home and dropped him off at the corner. That’s it.”

“Was he nice to you?” Dana asked. She was making his latte without even being asked.

“Not at first, but he was okay once we actually got in the car.”

“Mmmhmm.” Dana nodded. Her springy curls bounced. “He likes you.”

Rhett rolled his eyes and grabbed the latte. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

Dana was furious when she found out that Rhett hadn’t got Link’s number.

“I gave him mine. Ball’s in his court now,” Rhett pointed out reasonably.

But Link didn’t call or text, and he never came into the cafe to talk to Rhett, either. If he happened to see Rhett looking at him as he walked by, he’d wave a little, but that was all, and Rhett never went out to talk to him.

His crush on Link faded over time. Meeting him had pushed the imaginary romantic comedy Link completely out of his mind, and knowing that he went through the world with a hair-trigger made him honestly pretty unattractive to Rhett, cute though he was. 

The final straw was seeing Link whirl around in anger when an older man just barely bumped into him from behind. It was Link’s fault, really, because he’d slowed down for some reason, but Rhett could tell he’d said something rude to the old guy.

 _Asshole_ , Rhett decided.


	3. Chapter 3

After Rhett wrote Link off as an asshole, he stopped caring about whether or not he got to the cafe in time to see the east-west bus arrive, and stopped sitting in the seat by the window. Dana made a couple comments, but forgot all about Link once Rhett told her that he had a new boyfriend.

Victor was a friend of a friend that Rhett met at a poker night. Rhett was terrible at poker, and Victor kicked his ass, so Rhett asked for tips, and Victor asked him out.

Rhett liked him a lot. Victor was attractive and easy going, totally Rhett’s type. A big guy with a big beard and a big laugh. It wasn’t serious for either of them, but it was exclusive. Making friends as an adult was hard, and it was nice to have a built in booty call along with that. 

They’d been going out for about six months when Rhett got a text from a number he didn’t recognize. He was home from work, just lounging in his sweats, when his phone buzzed.

Text from: Unknown

(Unknown): hey this is lauren from the cafe

(Unknown): can you come downstairs if youre home?

(Unknown): i need your help

Rhett stared down at his phone. What could she possibly need his help with? It was a weird request, but he wasn’t doing anything else so... 

(Rhett): sure

He put on some shoes and real pants and clattered down the stairs (he only took the elevator when he had to). Lauren was waiting inside the cafe door, looking very fed up and upset.

“ _Thank_ you,” she said. “I’ve been arguing with him for over half an hour, and--”

“I can fucking _hear_ you!” someone yelled from inside the cafe. Rhett craned his neck and could just barely see Link sitting on the other side of the counter. Lauren looked like she wanted to strangle him.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. His phone’s dead and he doesn’t know anyone’s number, but he had your card in his wallet.” She crossed her arms. “He’s in a real mood tonight. If you don’t want to deal with it, I can call security. I was about to when he remembered he had your number.”

“Why didn’t you just kick him out?” Rhett asked.

“Man, _fuck_ you!” Link was twisted around in the chair, trying to see them.

“And why is he just sitting there?”

Lauren shook her head and retreated behind the counter. Rhett walked around to see that Link had one foot propped upon the seat of another chair and a bag of ice draped over his ankle.

Rhett sat down across from him. “So what happened there?”

Link scowled at him. “Twisted my ankle. Maybe sprained it. I was walking and _krrck…”_ he mimed breaking something between his hands. “It just buckled beneath me. It fucking hurts.”

“Mmm,” Rhett said thoughtfully. “And Lauren got you some ice?”

“Yeah, but then she told me I had to leave!” Link complained. “That’s such bullshit. I can’t even stand up.”

“He called me a bitch.” Lauren said from behind the counter. She sounded tired.

Rhett stood up and slapped his hand on the table. “Hey!” he barked. Link and Lauren both jumped. Rhett drew himself up to his considerable full height and loomed over Link. He knew his size intimidated people and tried to be as gentle and soft-spoken as possible, but he thought Link needed to be intimidated right about now.

“I don’t know what the _fuck_ your problem is,” he growled, low and dangerous, “but you do _not_ get to talk to her that way. Lauren didn’t have to give you ice for your ankle, she didn’t have to give you a coffee that night you missed the bus, she didn’t have to help you with anything. She has gone above and beyond for you, and you will treat her with respect. Is that understood?”

Link was leaned back in his chair as far as he could, and his eyes were so wide Rhett could see white all around his irises. Rhett guessed it was pretty rare that anyone called him out so forcefully.

“Wow,” Lauren whispered. She had her phone out, presumably updating Dana.

Link still hadn’t moved or said anything. “ _Well_?” Rhett demanded. Link blinked and nodded his head a little. Rhett sat down across from him again and steepled his fingers. He just waited, patiently, as Link looked back and forth between him and Lauren.

“What... ” he started. 

Lauren rolled her eyes. “He’s waiting for you to apologize to me.” Rhett could see in her face that she wanted to call Link an idiot, but was smart enough not to.

“Oh.” Link looked down into his lap and fiddled with his fingers. He had long, slender fingers with dark-painted nails. Rhett thought they were black at first, but the polish was something shimmery and more complex. Green, maybe, or purple.

“I’m sorry, Lauren.” He didn’t look up. Everything about Link’s body language said he didn’t want to be here right now. “I don’t really... deal well... with stress. Or pain. But I shouldn’t treat you like that. Or call you a bitch. That was fucked up.”

Rhett glanced over at Lauren, who shrugged. _Ehh, good enough for now._ “Thanks,” she said.

“So do you need a ride home?” Rhett asked.

Link glanced up at him and twisted his hands together. “I don’t like asking for favors.”

“You didn’t ask. I offered,” Rhett said. “And how else would you get home? You can’t exactly walk from the bus stop to your apartment.”

Link sighed. All of his anger was gone and he just seemed tired and in pain. “Yeah, okay.”

Rhett pulled his car up and helped Link get in. The man could barely put any weight on his foot. Lauren watched them leave, relief evident on her face.

“Can we stop at the pharmacy?” Link mumbled. “I need some stuff.”

“Sure.” There was a Walgreens not too far away. There always was. Rhett pulled into a spot and parked the car. “What do you need?”

“Um...” Link thought. “A brace, a bandage, an ice pack. Crutches if they have ‘em.” He pulled a credit card out of his wallet and handed it to Rhett.

Rhett was back fifteen minutes later with Link’s supplies. He threw them in the back seat and returned the card to Link. “Charles?”

Link made a face. “My middle name is Lincoln.” He was quiet the rest of the ride, other than telling Rhett where to turn. When Rhett pulled up in front of the apartment building, Link rested his forehead against the window. 

“I live on the second floor, and there’s no elevator,” he began. “Can you... ugh, I hate this!” He thumped his head gently against the window.

“Hey, don’t do that. It’s okay, man.” Rhett glanced in the back seat. “I’m gonna have to make two trips.”

“Whatever. Let’s just do this.” Rhett came around and helped Link out of the car. “God damn, you’re tall. What are you, like six foot six?”

“I’m five foot nineteen,” Rhett replied. He could almost see the gears in Link’s brain derail, pause, and start whirring in a different direction as he did the math. He snickered once he figured it out.

Link’s body was tense with pain and anxiety under Rhett’s arm. He felt kind of bad for the other man. Sure, he was an asshole, but he obviously had some serious issues, and Rhett could tell he was unhappy. And he did have a sprained ankle.

They made it awkwardly up the stairs and Link unlocked his apartment door. Inside, it was a little two room place--a living room with a tiny galley kitchen attached, and a bedroom with an attached bathroom. It reminded Rhett a bit of the apartment he had before he moved into his loft.

The bedroom door was closed, but the main room was spotlessly clean. Rhett would have described it as eclectic and cozy--the furniture was mismatched, but it was all in shades of green, with a blue rug and blue curtains. The art and knicknacks probably all came from thrift stores and antique malls. A few lush houseplants lined the windowsill.

“Wow, this is nice,” Rhett said as he deposited Link on the avocado green couch.

“Not what you expected?” Link asked with a raised eyebrow. He’d relaxed a tiny bit.

Rhett shrugged. “I didn’t really have any expectations. Lemme go get your stuff.” 

By the time Rhett returned with the supplies, Link had managed to get into the bedroom and shed his tight jeans and hoodie for a pair of loose pajama pants and a long sleeve t-shirt. The tiny bedroom was barely big enough for a bed, a little table, and a dresser, but Link looked small and vulnerable on the edge of the bed. His feet were bare and one ankle was bruised and swollen.

“You don’t paint your toenails?” Rhett said, a little surprised. He leaned against the bedroom door frame.

“Well, I don’t bite my toenails,” Link replied. He looked down at his hands. “I tried using clear polish, but I’d chew right through it. Dark polish is the only thing that works, because I don’t want to chip it.” A little smile quirked his lips. “And I like how it looks.”

Rhett looked at Link, really looked at him, and saw a lot of details he’d never noticed before. There were a few silver threads in his dark hair, and he had a little ring through the cartilage of one of his ears. When he bent his head down, Rhett could see the edge of a tattoo poking up over the neck of his shirt.

Suddenly, Rhett wanted to see Link with his shirt off. He wanted to see if anything else was hidden under there. He shook his head. He hadn’t found Link attractive in months, and not thirty minutes ago he’d yelled at him in a way he hadn’t yelled at anyone in years, and now he wanted to pull Link’s shirt off? Not just see Link with his shirt off, no, he specifically wanted to peel the shirt off him.

Absurd. Link was cute, sure, but he wasn’t Rhett’s type at all. Rhett had a boyfriend, a great guy, a good looking Viking of a guy (now _that_ was Rhett’s type), but here he was thirsting after this skinny asshole. 

“Why are you so nice to me, anyway?” Link asked.

“I dunno, man, why are you so awful to me?” 

“Fuck you,” Link replied. There wasn’t any rancor in his tone, and Rhett could tell it was more of a reflex than anything else, but suddenly he was done. His attraction to Link shriveled away as quickly as it had arrived.

“You know what? We’re done here. Don’t ask me for any more favors.” Rhett turned and walked out of the apartment. He could hear Link yelling for him to stop, wait, come back, but he didn’t.


	4. Chapter 4

Rhett tried to hand Dana his card, but she waved it off. “Lauren said you can have free coffee forever as far as she’s concerned, but we can’t really do that so I hope you’re okay with a week.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Rhett said.

Dana shook her head. She wasn’t wearing a wig today, just a bright scarf wrapped around her head and tied in a complex knot. “Lauren was really, really upset. She called me after you left. I think she probably would have called security if you hadn’t come down.”

“I took him to the pharmacy and got him supplies and drove him home and helped him up the stairs, and he told me to fuck off, so you can tell Lauren that if she ever needs me to throw him out, I will.” More than anything else, it was Link’s treatment of Lauren that pissed Rhett off. 

“I really gotta wonder what happened to him to make him like that. I’d guess that he’s really insecure and anxious, so he’s overcompensating,” speculated Dana, armchair psychologist.

“Yeah, well, I don’t care. He just needs to leave us all alone,” Rhett said.

“Word.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It must have been a bad sprain, because Rhett saw Link hobbling around on his crutches for the next month. Whenever Rhett felt a little guilty for not feeling sorry for Link, he just reminded himself that Link called Lauren a bitch after she helped him.

Through the grapevine (aka Lauren and Dana), Rhett heard that Link had stopped coming to the cafe for dinner. Was it out of embarrassment? Fear? Hurt pride? There was no way of knowing.

Months passed, and Rhett tried to move on, but there was something about Link that stuck with him. Maybe it was the moments of vulnerability when he wasn’t lashing out, maybe it was the way his skinny frame jittered with anxiety, maybe it was just his bright blue eyes. Rhett thought about him far more than he should have. He actively disliked Link, so why couldn’t he stop thinking about him?

And it wasn’t like Rhett was hard up for affection, either. His relationship with his boyfriend Victor was getting more serious. Rhett just felt comfortable with Victor. He was always sweet, always calm, always on time. Rhett knew what to expect from him.

Maybe the reason he thought about Link was because Link was the opposite of Victor in every way.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Night, babe. See you later.” As Rhett kissed Victor goodbye, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it, but it buzzed again. He sighed and pulled it out. “Oh shit.”

“What?” Victor asked. Rhett held the phone out to him. 

Text from: Unknown

(Unknown): [img]

The picture was an image of an apartment building on fire. Smoke and flames billowed from the window of one of the ground floor units. A couple fire trucks and police cars were on the scene. 

“Oh shit,” said Victor. “Who sent you that?”

Rhett frowned at the phone. “I don’t know.” It buzzed furiously as more texts came in. They read together.

(Unknown): i know we havent talked in a while

(Unknown): and our last conversation ended on real bad terms

(Unknown): but my apartment is burning down

(Unknown): and i dont have anything but my phone and my pajamas

(Unknown): ill never ask for anything after this

(Unknown): but

(Unknown): youre the only person i could think of

(Unknown): so

(Unknown): could you come get me?

“Oh. It’s Link.” Rhett sighed. “You know, he really does have the worst luck.”

“Based on what you’ve told me about him, it’s probably karma,” Victor said. “Are you gonna go get him?”

“I guess.” Rhett had wanted to wash his hands of Link, but there was no way he’d be able to live with himself if he didn’t help someone who lost their home. “It’s not like giving someone a ride is a big deal.” He texted back.

(Rhett): okay

(Rhett): this ONE time

(Rhett): meet me at 21st and grand

“You’re a mensch,” Victor said. He kissed Rhett and sent him on his way.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Link had neglected to mention that his pajamas consisted of only a t-shirt and boxer briefs. He didn’t even have shoes on.

“No pants?” Rhett asked as Link climbed into the car. He smelled strongly of smoke.

“No time.” Link replied. He leaned his head back onto the headrest and closed his eyes. 

“If you tell me to fuck off or anything like that, I’m going to kick you out and you can figure out something else,” Rhett warned.

“Okay,” Link said. He sounded very, very tired.

“So where to?” Rhett asked as he took the car out of park.

Link opened his eyes and looked over at Rhett. “What?”

“Where do you need a ride to?” Rhett elaborated.

“Well, here’s the thing.” Link pulled off his glasses and rubbed his face. “I was gonna ask to go to a hotel, but I don’t have my wallet. I have a shirt, a pair of underwear, my glasses, and my phone. That’s it. So I don’t know.”

Rhett put the car back into park. “I’ll cover it for you. You can pay me back later. I mean, you know where to find me.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t, but I offered anyway.”

“Why are you so nice to me?” Link asked again as Rhett started driving. Rhett snorted.

“Being nice is easy, man. You just follow the steps. Say please, say thank you, hold the door... it’s the path of least resistance. Doesn’t being an asshole all the time make you tired?”

Link ignored that question. “Driving across town to pick up someone you don’t even like isn’t the path of least resistance.”

Rhett didn’t have anything to say to that.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Later, Rhett would be able to pinpoint the exact moment that things shifted.

He glanced over while they were at a red light. Link was staring out the window, right index finger in his mouth. He pulled it out and grimaced at his nail, then picked a flake of chipped polish off his tongue.

“Hey, do you mind if I make a stop on the way?” Rhett asked. “I need to get some stuff.”

Link shrugged. “I don’t have anywhere to be.” He tried to laugh but it sounded a bit more like a sob.

There was a CVS nearby. There always was. Rhett parked and went inside. By the time he came out with a plastic bag of purchases, Link was asleep with his head leaned against the window. His glasses were askew and his mouth was open a little.

It was late enough that the stop lights were flashing. There were very few other cars out. Rhett drove carefully to avoid waking Link up.

He reached his destination and parked. “Hey,” he said softly, and touched Link on the shoulder. Link awoke with a start. “We’re here.”

“Uhh…” Link straightened his glasses and looked around. “Where are we?”

“The parking garage at my apartment.”

“Why?”

“You can crash in my guest room.”

Link spun around towards Rhett as much as his seatbelt would let him and stared at him in blank astonishment. “What the _fuck_ is wrong with you?”

“I... sorry?”

“Like, I don’t really care where I stay tonight, as long as it’s inside,” Link said. “Hotel or couch or whatever, I don’t give a fuck. But taking a vulnerable sleeping person to your apartment when you said you’d take them to a hotel? That’s some serial killer shit, man.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call you _vulnerable_... ” Rhett began, but Link cut him off.

“I don’t have any pants!” His voice raised an octave. “I don’t have any shoes! I couldn’t exactly run away from you. You’re a lot bigger than me. No one knows I’m here with you. I know you’re not gonna kill me ‘cause that wouldn’t be very _nice_ of you, but do you honestly not see how messed up that is?”

They stared at each other in the orange sodium light for a moment. Rhett broke first.

“Yeah. Yeah, I...” he closed his eyes and rubbed his beard. “I’m sorry. It is fucked up. I just thought, well, my place is nicer than a hotel, so he’d probably rather stay here, right? It’ll be a nice surprise. I didn’t really think about how it would come off to you.”

Link rolled his eyes. “Obviously.”

“So do you want me to take you to a hotel?”

“Nah.”

Rhett raised his eyebrows. “No?”

Link shook his head. “No, I hear this place is nicer than a hotel.”


	5. Chapter 5

Link looked around skeptically. “Is this your actual apartment, that you really live in?”

“Yeah, why?” Rhett asked.

“‘Cause it looks like a fucking West Elm catalog, man! Why is everything gray? You ever heard of a color? I mean, yeah, it’s nicer than a hotel, but it has just about the same amount of personality.”

Rhett scowled at him. “Why are you like this?”

“You mean, why do I go through life like I want to fight everything?” Link cackled at Rhett’s expression. “I’m not unaware of my personality, dude. I know why I’m like this, and maybe I’ll even tell you sometime, but right now I just want to wash the smoke out of my hair and go to sleep.”

“Oh.” Rhett remembered he was holding the CVS bag, and handed it to Link. “I got you some stuff.”

Link sifted through the stuff in the bag. A toothbrush, some travel size toiletries... he pulled out a teardrop shaped bottle. “Nail polish remover?”

“Yeah, and...” Rhett reached deep in the bag and pulled out a little bottle of deep gunmetal gray polish. “I saw you biting your nails.”

Link sank down onto the bland couch and buried his face in his hands. His skinny shoulders shook with sobs, but he didn’t make a sound. Rhett watched awkwardly for a moment before sitting next to him. He gently rubbed Link’s back.

“Thank you,” Link said thickly.

“You’re gonna be okay,” Rhett said. “C’mon, you can borrow one of my shirts to sleep in.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Rhett awoke to the unusual sound of of another person talking in his apartment. He blinked groggily at the wall as he tried to recall the previous evening. Oh, right. Link. That was a weird way to end a Friday night.

He got dressed and went out to the kitchen, where Link was sitting at the breakfast bar with his phone held up to his ear, taking notes on the back of an envelope. He waved his pen at Rhett before resuming.

“Mmhmm, got it. And what was his number again? Okay, thanks. Yeah, I’ll let you know. Bye.” He wrapped up his call and looked at Rhett. “Well, my apartment didn’t burn down.”

“That’s great, Link!”

“It’s not all good news. The fire was in the apartment below mine, which is totally destroyed, so my place got a lot of smoke damage and water damage. I guess insurance will pay for some restoration company to come in and fix it, but it’s gonna take a while.” He idly spun his pen around his fingers. It was a trick that Rhett had tried to learn in high school, but failed. He noticed that Link had redone his nails with the gray polish sometime in the night. “Sooooo I guess I’m just mostly fucked instead of completely fucked.”

“Did they say what started the fire?”

“Yeah.” A venomous look crossed Link’s face and his shoulders tensed up. “Stupid motherfucker got drunk and fell asleep with a tray of tater tots in the oven.”

Rhett grimaced. “Did they get out?”

Link’s expression softened. “I dunno. Hope so.” He spun the pen again. “I know you might not believe me, but I don’t really wish death on people. I just wanna punch them sometimes. And, um, occasionally I do.”

Rhett immediately had a hundred questions, the first one being, ‘When was the last time you punched someone, and why?’ but what he actually said was, “Do you want some coffee?”

“Sure.” Link was wearing Rhett’s oversized t-shirt and his checkered boxer briefs. It felt oddly intimate and domestic to have him in the kitchen like that, especially once Rhett handed him a cup of coffee.

“What are you gonna do now?” Rhett asked as he poured creamer into his coffee. Link took his black.

“Fuck if I know. Hopefully you’ll let me hang out here until this afternoon when the fire department clears the building and I can go get some stuff. But I can’t stay there.”

“Sure, you can hang out for a while.” He stirred his drink, the spoon clinking against the ceramic. “You got any family nearby you could stay with? Or friends?”

Link snorted. “I’m currently cancelled by my friends.” He held up his hands. “But it wasn’t my fault this time, I swear! My friend Sierra was cheating on her boyfriend Bryan, like bad cheating, with drugs and shit. So I told him, and Sierra flipped her shit, because I guess I was supposed to be loyal to her because she was my friend first? Well, fuck _that_. Now she’s mad at me, and she got all her friends to be mad at me, and Bryan got back with her for some stupid reason, and they all were trashing me on social media so I blocked most of them.”

“And these people are adults?” Rhett asked.

“Ostensibly. They’ll get over it in a few weeks. They always do.”

“I’d say you need new friends, but you’d probably have trouble with that.” Rhett grinned into his coffee mug at the predictably outraged look on Link’s face. He wasn’t scared of Link anymore. It was hard to feel threatened by someone in checkered boxers and a borrowed undershirt.

“Fuck you, man.” Apparently Link wasn’t going to get mad at Rhett anymore, either (at least over something that minor), because he was smiling, too. His expression got serious. “Actually, you’re probably as close as I’ve gotten in, like, twenty years.”

“ _Really_?” Rhett knew making friends as an adult was hard, but it wasn’t that hard.

Link shrugged. “Uh, usually I lash out right away, because that’s what I do, and that’s that. I don’t know why you bothered to come back.”

It was Rhett’s turn to shrug. He certainly wasn’t going to admit to his middle school crush. “You seem really self aware for a self saboteur.”

Link picked the pen up and spun it again, a different trick this time. “I read a bunch of self help books and went to some therapy and did a court-mandated anger management course, so I’m better than I used to be, but I--”

“Hold up, a _court-mandated_ anger management class?”

“Yeah, like ten years ago. I smashed my neighbor’s car windshield with a baseball bat because his muffler was broken and he woke me up at 4:30am every single goddamn day for six months. Yes, I tried talking to him first, and yes, I was kind of an asshole about it, but some of the other neighbors talked to him, too, and he still didn’t do anything.” Link held up his hands as if to say _well, what can you do?_

“Wow.” Rhett didn’t have anything else to say so he just sipped his coffee.

“Yeah. Anyway, I’m almost forty so my personality is probably pretty well set at this point. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t like this but it is what it is.” Link tried another pen trick, but fumbled and the pen clattered to the floor. He leaned over to pick it up and Rhett tried not to stare as his butt. He failed. It was a really nice butt.

“Anyway.” Link climbed back onto the bar stool and put the pen down on the black granite. He rested his chin in his hands. “I don’t usually talk to people about personal stuff like this. I guess the whole ‘apartment almost burning down’ thing has me feeling some kinda way.”

Rhett put his empty mug in the sink. “What was it like? The fire, I mean.”

“It honestly seemed like one second I was asleep in bed and the next second I was out on the sidewalk in my underwear. I mean, I know the smoke alarm woke me up, and I know the apartment was absolutely full of smoke, and I’m pretty sure there was a conscious decision to get my phone and glasses but...” he shrugged. “I don’t really remember it, you know?”

Rhett nodded. “I was in a car accident once, on black ice, and it was like that. I was driving and suddenly I was on the other side of the road, facing the wrong way, in a ditch. And my airbag went off somewhere in there.”

“Yeah.” They talked about the various mishaps of life for a while. Rhett had to run some errands, so Link retreated to the guest room with his phone and envelope to make some more calls.

The last thing Rhett heard before leaving his apartment was Link’s voice raised in outrage.


	6. Chapter 6

Text from: Unknown

(Unknown): [img]

It was a picture of Link’s living room, his blue rug and green furniture covered in gray ash and soaking wet.

(Rhett): i’m so sorry

He went to add Link to his contacts, but frowned when he realized that he didn’t know Link’s last name. He’d seen it, months ago, when he used Link’s card to buy supplies for his sprained ankle, but couldn’t remember it. Something short.

(Rhett): btw what’s your last name?

(Unknown): neal

(Unknown): why

(Rhett): so i can put it in my phone

He did so.

(Rhett): so now what?

(Link): got my wallet and some other stuff

(Link): gonna go get set up at one of those long stay motels

(Link): man fuck this bullshit

(Link): like shit wasn’t hard enoguh already

(Rhett): well let me know if you need a ride or anything

(Link): nah i’m good

(Link): ... 

(Link): i want you to know that i started writing something about not being your fucking charity project

(Link): but i didn’t send it

Rhett blinked at his phone. This fucking guy... 

(Rhett): yes you did

(Link): huh

(Link): anyway i don’t think you’re offering out of pity

(Link): i think you might actually like me

(Link): god knows why

The thing was, he did like Link, and he wasn’t sure why. Link was cute, with his bright eyes and dark hair, and he did seem to have a sweet personality under his temper. Rhett wasn’t offering a ride out of pity, but he did feel sorry for Link. The repeated mishaps, the fights with his “friends”... it was clear that Link didn’t have an easy life, and he wasn’t happy.

Rhett thought that maybe Link needed a new friend.

(Rhett): yeah

(Rhett): guess i do

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Victor had a surprisingly sharp reaction to Rhett letting Link crash at his place.

“You should have asked me if it was alright! I’d never have someone else spend the night at my place without discussing it with you first!”

Rhett made a face at his phone the Victor couldn’t see. He was incredibly irritated and exasperated by this conversation. “I wasn’t aware I needed your permission to have a guest, Vic. It’s not like he was a Grindr hookup!”

“You could have taken him to a hotel!” Victor snapped.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t.” Rhett sighed. “Why are you so upset about this, anyway? It can’t really be about me having a guest. You didn’t care when my brother was here a couple months ago.”

“That was your brother! Not some random guy you don’t even like.”

Rhett gripped his phone so hard his fingers hurt. “Are you kidding me? His building was on fire, he didn’t have any money, and he had nowhere to go.” He sounded much calmer than he felt. “Are you jealous or something?”

Victor spluttered for a moment, and then there was silence on the other end of the line. 

“Oh my god,” Rhett said, incredulous. “You’re jealous of _Link_? Link, of all people?”

“You like him,” Victor mumbled. “You say you don’t, but you do.”

“Okay, he’s growing on me,” Rhett admitted. “I think we could be friends. Surely you don’t mind if I have friends.”

“Well, no, but--” Victor began. Rhett cut him off.

“Great! Hey, I gotta go, talk to you later.” He tapped the screen to end the call and wished for the days of telephones with receivers you could slam down to hang up on someone, or at least a flip phone to snap shut. Touching a screen just wasn’t satisfying enough.

Rhett set the phone down on the counter, where it buzzed indignantly. Texts from Victor popped up on the screen. Rhett silenced it and left it in the kitchen. He went into the bedroom and lay on the bed, staring up at the fan as he thought.

What the hell was Vic’s problem? He’d been acting weird lately. Nothing had changed as far as Rhett could tell, but Victor seemed both a little suspicious and possessive of him. So far it hadn’t done anything but make Rhett mildly annoyed, but now... 

“If I were Link, I would have flipped my shit multiple times during that conversation,” Rhett mumbled to himself. He grinned as he imagined Link’s reaction to being told he needed permission to do anything. It involved a lot of indignant cursing and ended with an invitation to _go fuck yourself_.

Rhett found that he didn’t feel that bad about hanging up on Victor. It wasn’t the sort of thing he usually did, but Vic had been so unreasonable that Rhett needed to end the conversation before he said something he regretted. He liked Victor, their relationship made him happy, but Rhett was not going to allow Victor to dictate his life.

“Yeah, go fuck yourself!” Rhett whispered. It was pretty satisfying. Maybe Link had a point.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Despite their mutual accord, neither man made much of an effort towards a relationship. Occasionally they would exchange texts (usually when Link would send Rhett a picture of the progress of his apartment), but Link’s hotel was near a different bus line, so he never walked past the cafe anymore.

Finally, one day about two months after the fire, Rhett got a text.

Text From: Link Neal

(Link): [img]

(Link): look its livable again!

The picture showed Link’s living room. The walls were clean and freshly painted, the previously buckled hardwood floor was smooth again, and Link’s blue rug, which he’d rescued and had steam cleaned, lay on the boards.

There was no other furniture.

(Rhett): that’s great!

(Rhett): when are you going back?

(Link): as soon as i have a bed i guess

(Link): wanna go shopping?

(Link): i got my insurance payout so now i can buy furniture

(Rhett): i mean sure i guess

(Rhett): but why me?

(Rhett): still havent made up with your friends?

(Link): no i did

(Link): but

(Link): idk its complicated

(Link): anyway

(Link): are you free this weekend? lets go to ikea

(Rhett): yeah, all weekend. Saturday afternoon?

(Link): sounds good

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“I don’t wanna get everything here,” Link said, “but I at least need a bed, a couch, and maybe a couple little tables.”

“Where’d you get your stuff before?” Rhett asked. He thought maybe he’d pick up a few throw pillows or something to add a little color to his living room. Link was right, it was pretty bland.

“Oh, thrift stores, estate sales, Craigslist, whatever. I like looking for treasures.” Link sprawled out on one of the display sofas. “This is comfy.”

Rhett pushed his legs out of the way and sat down. Link gave him a weird look but didn’t say anything. Rhett squirmed around, trying to get comfortable on the couch.

“It’s a little shallow for me, but your legs aren’t as long as mine,” Rhett said.

“I don’t sit on the couch like that, though,” Link replied. “Either I lie down, or I sit like this.” He drew his legs up underneath him, which made him seem much smaller and more delicate. Link was wearing plaid pants and a denim jacket with the sleeves rolled up. Rhett couldn’t decide if he liked the pants, or thought they were too much.

“What about the color, though? Kind of a weird mustard yellow,” Rhett said. He didn’t care for it.

Link shrugged. “I don’t mind it. I can work with yellow. They probably have slipcovers for it, anyway.” He pulled the tag towards him and took a picture of it with his phone. “Let’s go look at beds.”

Rhett trailed after Link as he inspected the bed frames. “Ooh, storage,” Link murmured as he pulled out a drawer. “I like this. Not too pricey, either.”

“Are you really just going to get a full?” Rhett asked.

“I mean, you’ve seen that bedroom.” Link held his fingers up in the shape of a tiny square. “I sleep all curled up, anyway.”

“You don’t ever have anyone stay over?” Rhett asked. It seemed a little inappropriate to ask, but he was curious about Link’s relationships. He had those volatile on again off again friends, but he’d never mentioned anything romantic. Of course, they hadn’t actually spent that much time together, and Rhett didn’t think he’d mentioned Victor to Link yet.

Link shook his head. “It’s better if I don’t.” He knelt down and looked at another bed frame.

Rhett sat on the end of the bed. “Can I ask why?”

Link looked up at him and then glanced around. The IKEA was big enough that even on a busy Saturday, no one was near them, and even if they had been, they were involved in their own bed decisions and paying no attention to LInk.

“You know, I don’t mind talking to you about this sort of thing. Usually I hate it,” Link said. “Maybe it’s ‘cause you’re so chill. I know you’re not gonna flip out at me.”

“I did one time, though,” Rhett pointed out. 

“Yeah, well, I deserved it.” Link sat next to Rhett and stared down at his sneakers. “I don’t have people sleep over at my place because if something goes wrong, I’d rather be able to escape than try and make someone leave.”

That was a… disconcerting… answer. “Does that happen a lot?” Rhett asked. He didn’t ask Link to define what something ‘going wrong’ meant.

“It’s happened enough.”

“You know, that first day we met, when I ran into you, Dana said that you didn’t have a fight or flight response, just fight or fight.”

Link laughed, delighted. “Yes! That’s perfect. Sometimes it’s fight _then_ flight, though.” He paused. “I make a lot of bad decisions.”

“When’s the last time you got in a fight? Like, a physical fight, not just yelling at someone.”

Link answered immediately. “A couple days after the fire. I was at a bar getting drunk, bemoaning my fate, woe is me, whatever. Some asshole kept hitting on me and trying to buy me drinks. I told him to fuck off but he wouldn’t, so I shoved him and he knocked me over and the bouncer threw me out. The usual.” He poked Rhett in the arm. “What about you? When was your last fight?”

A little shiver went through Rhett at his touch. Interesting. He tried to concentrate on the conversation. “Uh, elementary school. I punched a kid in the stomach because he was a bully.”

Link snickered.

“What?” Rhett demanded.

“You’re just so fucking pure, man. It’s refreshing. Punching bullies, Jesus.”

“I was always the biggest kid, so usually I just loomed over them.” He stood up and leaned over Link. “Like this.”

Link gave him an unimpressed look. “Yeah, seen it. I’m not scared of you.”

Suddenly, Rhett wanted to grab Link and pin him to the bed.The desire was as unexpected and startling as it had been the night he wanted to pull off Link’s shirt when he sprained his ankle. It settled in his stomach and warmed him from inside. If they hadn’t been in an IKEA, he might actually have done it. 

Also, Link would probably headbutt him.

So instead, he stood and said, “Well, if you want this one, let’s keep moving.”


	7. Chapter 7

The next section was mattresses.

“I wanna upgrade.” Link declared as he flopped down. “Memory foam, baby!” He was completely oblivious to Rhett’s sudden inner turmoil.

“Mmm.” Rhett sat on one of the beds and watched Link test out the various mattresses. He’d lie down, curl up, roll over, move to another bed, and do it over again. It made Rhett imagine what Link would be like asleep, hair messy, face relaxed.

This was the first time they’d actually hung out, Rhett realized. All their previous interactions--the coffee shop collision, the sprained ankle, the burning building--had been initiated by mishap and misfortune. But today was voluntary. Link had invited him, wanted to spend time with him. He was giggly and relaxed. Was it any wonder Rhett was attracted to him?

“Rhett.” Link interrupted his thoughts. “Come tell me what you think of this one.” He slapped the mattress he was lying on.

“Uh, what?”

“See if it’s comfortable!”

Rhett stared at him. “What could my opinion possibly have to do with anything? I’m never gonna sleep in your bed.”

“Just get on the fucking mattress, Rhett.”

Rhett got on the fucking mattress. Slowly, carefully, he positioned himself flat on his back as far from Link as possible. He was acutely aware that they were sharing a bed in the middle of an IKEA. “It’s nice. Supports my back.”

Link tugged his sleeve. “Hey. Look at me.”

Rhett gingerly rolled over onto his side. He was so close to the edge of the bed that he might fall off. Link faced him. Gosh, his eyes were so blue, and his lips looked so soft.

This was rapidly becoming a problem.

“Why are you so tense? I’m not gonna bite you.” Link was propped up on one elbow.

Rhett shrugged as well as he could while lying down.

“So you wanna come over to my place later?” Link asked. He burst out laughing at the alarmed look on Rhett’s face. “Not like that, man! To put this together! God, did you think I was asking you to hookup or something?”

“No,” Rhett lied. His ears were burning and he could tell his face was red. 

“Uh-huh.” Link hopped off the bed and took a picture of the tag. “C’mon, I’ll buy you some meatballs.”

~*~*~*~*~*

Lunch was predictably filled with meatball related puns and innuendos.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

“My kitchen stuff was fine, really, just needed a wash,” Link said. He was leaning on one of the big carts, ticking things off on his fingers. “So I just need linens, mostly. Sheets, pillows, blankets, shower curtains, towels... probably forgetting something but I’m about done with the IKEA experience.”

“Yeah, me too,” Rhett agreed. “I swear this building is bigger on the inside than the outside.”

They sped through the lower level of IKEA like men on a mission, which they were. Link filled his cart with linens, gray and white for the bedroom, blue and brown for the bathroom. Rhett threw in a few throw pillows and a grass-green blanket for himself.

“You were right about my living room,” he said to Link. “Needs some color.” Link grinned at him. It filled Rhett’s belly with warmth.

Everything was going well until Link whacked his shin on the edge of a display.

“Ow, fuck!” he gasped. “God _damn_ it, that hurt.” He leaned over and rubbed his leg, muttering, “fuck fuck fuck,” under his breath.

A woman passing by with a couple little kids in tow stopped. “Don’t use that kind of language in front of children!” she snapped at him.

Link glared up at her. “Look, lady, I--” he cut off as Rhett gently touched his shoulder and minutely shook his head. _It’s not worth it, man._

The woman sniffed and hauled her kids off as Link turned his glare towards Rhett. “What the hell, man?”

“You don’t need to fight a soccer mom in an IKEA, Link.”

“Don’t fuckin’ tell me what to do!” Link hissed. His fingers twitched.

“You don’t need to fight me in an IKEA, either,” Rhett said mildly. He was determined to remain calm in the theory that it might rub off on Link.

It seemed to work, at least a little, because Link just scowled at him for a moment longer before turning back to the cart. His shoulders were tense and drawn up. Rhett followed him silently through the rest of the home goods.

By the time they reached the warehouse, Link had relaxed and was back to his normal self. _We’ve gotta talk about this at some point if we’re gonna be friends_ , Rhett thought. And he did want to be Link’s friend. He just didn’t want to be Link’s handler. Or his punching bag.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

The bed frame boxes wouldn’t fit in Rhett’s car, so Link arranged to get everything delivered. 

“You free tomorrow?” he asked Rhett as he threw his bag of linens in the back of Rhett’s car. “If you help me put that bed together, I’ll buy you beer and pizza.”

Rhett grinned. “Bribe accepted.” He drove out of the parking garage and toward Link’s hotel. “How much longer are you gonna stay?”

“I’m paid up until Thursday,” Link said. “I’ll probably take a few days off work to get everything set up. God, I’m so ready to go home. I mean, it’s not really gonna feel like home, but...”

“Yeah.” Rhett glanced over at him. “What do you do for work, anyway? Probably not customer service.”

Link laughed. “No way! The longest I ever kept a customer service job was two weeks. I’m a bookkeeper for a pest control company. I don’t have to talk to anybody, just keep track of the money.” He made a swishing motion with his hand. “Money goes out, money comes in, it all adds up at the end of the day. I like it.”

“What about coworkers?” Rhett asked.

“There’s only five other people that work in the headquarters, we each have our own offices, and they’re all pretty chill. I was really, really lucky to find this job. I’ve been there four years, which is the longest I’ve ever had a job.”

“ _Ever_?” Rhett had only had two jobs since he got out of college. He’d been at his current job for twelve years.

“Things aren’t easy for me, Rhett!” Link snapped. “I know I’m a fuckup, okay? I _know_. You might get along with people, but I don’t, so it’s a pretty big deal that I found a job that I can keep, that I like, and that hired me with my record. I want to be your friend, I really do, but I swear to God if you use that patronizing tone of voice--”

“Link!” Rhett interrupted. “Stop, okay? Just stop.” He turned onto a side street and pulled over the curb before twisting towards Link. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad about anything and I don’t think you’re a fuckup. I want to be your friend, too, but not if you freak out at me for every little thing.”

Link glared at him suspiciously. His lips twitched into a frown. “I wish I could believe you weren’t lying,” he said finally.

“I’m not lying?” Rhett was honestly bewildered.

“Everyone thinks I’m a fuckup because I _am_ a fuckup!” Link yelled. “I blow up at people all the time, I get drunk and get into fights every few months, I lost my license for getting too many tickets, I’ve been arrested a bunch of times... I even went to jail for six months.”

“Wow. Okay.” Rhett thought for a second. “All that, though, and you have a job and a nice apartment and friends?”

“My friends suck.”

“Still.”

Link sighed. His anger seemed to have vanished as quickly as it came. “You’ll change your mind eventually.”

“Hmm.” Rhett drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “You ever drive drunk?”

“No!”

“Seriously injure anybody?”

“I think I fractured a guy’s jaw once. He gave me a black eye though. Broke my glasses.”

“What were you fighting about?”

“He drugged someone’s drink at the bar. I saw him put some powder in it.”

“Jesus.” Rhett might have punched a date rapist, too. “Is that what you went to jail for?”

To his surprise, Link, who had been so forthcoming, flushed bright red and shook his head. “I don’t wanna say.”

“Fraud? Theft? Nonpayment of child support?”

“No.” Link crossed his arms. “I’m not gonna play 20 Questions with you, either.”

“Then I guess you’ll have to let me decide for myself whether you’re a fuckup or not.” Rhett put the car back in drive. “I mean, being a hothead isn’t great, and I’m not saying you’ve been making the best decisions, but I don’t think a fuckup would be doing as well as you seem to be doing.”

Link just stared at him for a moment, disbelief on his face, before shaking his head and looking out the window. “I don’t understand you, man.”

Rhett shrugged. “Yeah, well, feeling’s mutual, but we’re still hanging out tomorrow, right?”

Link laughed a little. “Yeah, guess so.”


	8. Chapter 8

“What’s all that IKEA stuff for?” Victor asked as he climbed into Rhett’s car.

Rhett glanced into the back seat. “Oh, Link asked me to take him earlier because his apartment is in liveable condition again, but he doesn’t have any furniture or anything. He just left it there because I’m going back tomorrow to help build stuff. No sense in carrying it into the hotel just to carry it back out.”

Victor frowned. “I thought you weren’t going to see him any more.”

“I never said that.” He hadn’t. They had had another argument about Link a couple weeks after the first one, and he _had_ let Victor put words in his mouth, because Link hadn’t seemed interested in anything beyond the occasional update text, and it seemed easier that way. Rhett regretted that now. “I thought _you_ didn’t have any problem with me having friends.”

“Don’t do this, Rhett,” Victor warned. “I don’t want to have an argument tonight. I just want to go out to dinner.”

 _Then don’t start an argument_ , Rhett thought. He didn’t say anything. It wasn’t just Link that Victor seemed suspicious of, it was whoever Rhett happened to mention while Vic was feeling insecure, or whatever his problem was. He refused to have a real discussion about it.

“Rhett?” Victor asked.

“You know what,” Rhett began. “Link is not a threat to you. Neither is Daniel, or Megan, or Taylor, or anyone. Okay? And this is not me starting an argument. This is me stating a fact.” This was true. He was attracted to Link, but he’d never act on it while he was with Victor. And it wasn’t like Link had given any real indication that he was interested in Rhett, anyway.

He continued. “So you can believe me, you can argue with me, or you can get out of the car and just go back inside, because I’m tired of this. It’s up to you.” It wasn’t lost on him that this was the second conversation he’d had along these lines in his car on the same day. Rhett was pretty sure that Link, notoriously unstable though he was, had reacted better than Victor was about to.

He was proven correct as Victor did not believe him, argued with him, and then went back into his house after slamming the car door.

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

“You okay, man? You seem sad,” Link said as they drove to his apartment to meet the IKEA delivery truck.

“I had a big argument with my boyfriend last night,” Rhett replied. 

“Oh, I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”

Rhett rubbed his face in frustration. “I might not for much longer if he doesn’t calm the fuck down. He’s so fucking unreasonable.”

“About what?” Link asked.

“Uhh…” Was it a good idea to tell Link the truth? Probably not. Rhett did anyway. “He thinks I’m gonna cheat with you.”

“Whoa.” Link’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you?”

 _...the fuck?_ “No!”

“And you told him that?”

“Yes.”

“Then he should believe you.” Link settled back in his seat, perfectly satisfied with this logic.

“You didn’t believe me yesterday when I told you I didn’t think you were a fuckup!” Rhett protested.

“Well, I thought about it a lot last night, and I’m pretty sure you’re being sincere, so…” Link held up his hands in defeat. “I believe you. I still think you might change your mind later, though.”

“Guess we’ll just have to see,” said Rhett.

“Guess we will.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

“God, that took forever.” Link threw the allen wrench across the room. It hit the wall with a clunk and left a little mark in the fresh paint. “I thought you’d be better at this. Aren’t engineers supposed to be good with spatial relations?”

“No one’s good at IKEA assembly.” Rhett crumpled up the assembly instructions and threw them after the allen wrench. “I washed all your stuff ‘cause my date got cancelled last night, by the way.”

Link’s eyes widened a little. “Oh, I didn’t even think of that.”

“I’m looking out for you, man.” Rhett scooted back to sit against the wall. There wasn’t anywhere else to sit in the apartment. The just-assembled bed frame was the only piece of furniture. Link was leaning up against it.

He laughed. It was a little bitter. “That’s good, because no one else is.”

“What about your friend? Sarah or whatever her name is.”

“Sierra.” Link drew little patterns on his thigh with his finger. Rhett suspected he’d be spinning a pen if he had one. “I don’t think she’s really my friend.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve known her since college, so like twenty years, and she’s never done half the things you’ve done for me. And we barely know each other!” Link pulled his knees up to his chest. “Whenever we hang out, she never cares about how I’m doing, she just complains about her job and her boyfriend and shit, and she argues with me about everything, and it sucks. I figured it was because I was a fuckup, and that’s how all my friendships would be, but then I met you and I’m still me and you don’t treat me like her at all. So I don’t know if you’re my friend, but I’m pretty sure she isn’t.”

“Wow.” Rhett took a moment to take that all in. “I’d like to think I’m your friend.”

“Yeah?” Link gave him a hopeful little smile.

“Yeah. ‘Cause I think you’re my friend.”

Link beamed at him.

~*~*~*~*~*~

“I didn’t realize there’d be olives on this,” Link grumbled as he picked them off and made a neat little pile on the pizza box. His nails were a deep green this time. Rhett looked at him in amusement as he sipped his beer. They were taking a break before putting together the couch and a couple little side tables.

“You never had supreme pizza before?”

“Uh, I thought it was the kind with all the different meats, which is why I agreed when you suggested it.” Link took a bite of his olive-free slice and chewed. “This is good except the olives, though.”

“That’s meat lovers,” Rhett said.

“Oh. That’s a better name for it.” Link dropped his crust in the box next to the olive pile. “Thanks again for helping me with this. I know they have people who will do it for you, but this is a lot more fun.”

Rhett picked up another piece of pizza. “Yeah, I was pretty apprehensive about putting together IKEA furniture with you but this has been pretty nice.”

“Are you suggesting that I get frustrated easily? Rhett, I’m hurt.” Link put on a sad face and pressed his hand to his heart. They laughed. “Actually, that’s part of the reason I asked you. You’re so calm, it’s easier for me to stay calm. If I got pissed, you’d just go ‘Link’ and give me a look like _you know you can do better_.”

Rhett snorted. “You got me there. That’s exactly what I would do.”

“And, um, I don’t really know how to say this,” Link looked down into his lap and twisted his hands together. “But I’m sorry for causing a fight between you and your boyfriend, and if you don’t wanna hang out anymore, I’d understand.”

“Oh god, Link, that’s not your fault! Victor’s being an asshole. I don’t know what I’m going to do about him, but I’m not going to stop hanging out with you.” Rhett made a face. “It’s not just you, either. He’s been weird about some of my coworkers, too.”

Link didn’t say anything, just opened a beer with a worried look.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

True to his word, Rhett didn’t stop hanging out with Link. Every two or three weeks, they’d go to an antique mall, flea market, or go on what Link described as a ‘shady Craigslist deal’ to get more stuff for Link’s apartment.

“Aren’t you worried about bedbugs?” Rhett asked as they loaded a gold velvet brocade ottoman and a brass floor lamp into his car. Link stared at him blankly.

“Uh, I work for a pest control company,” he said finally. “I wouldn’t buy any secondhand upholstered stuff if I didn’t. I know what to look for, and I know some guys who could help if I have any problems. That’s how I found my job, actually. I had bedbugs at my old place, and I got to talking to the exterminator when he came to spray.”

“Are bedbugs really as awful as they sound?”

“Oh yeah,” Link said. He shuddered. “I got welts the diameter of golf balls that itched more than anything. Luckily it was summer and I had a car then, so I put a lot of my stuff in garbage bags and parked in the sun for weeks, so I didn’t have to throw away _too_ much stuff. I still freak out a little if I find, like, a dark ball of lint on my bed.”

Rhett slammed the hatch shut. “When did you get rid of your car?”

“About two years ago. My license is suspended until I pay off all my fines, which is gonna take a long time, so it didn’t really make sense to keep it.” He looked up at Rhett. “I still don’t know why it’s so easy for me to talk to you.”

Rhett shrugged.

“But you don’t talk to me that much,” Link said.

“Well, you just talk more than me in general,” Rhett pointed out. “But what do you want to know?”

“Does Victor know we’re hanging out?”

Rhett made a face. “We haven’t really talked about it. It’s this weird ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ situation. He’s not stupid, he must know, but it’s like it became a nonissue overnight. He doesn’t say anything when I mention my coworkers, either.”

“Mmm,” Link said. “Does he like your new decor?” Rhett had begun to replace his bland art with vintage finds.

Rhett laughed. “He hates that velvet desert painting. Said it was the tackiest thing he’d ever seen.”

Link scoffed. “That painting is amazing.”

“I know!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Said velvet desert painting is, of course, the one from the GMM set.
> 
> Link's bedbug experience is taken directly from my real life. Don't get bedbugs, y'all, but if you must, try to time it so you can bake all your winter gear in a hot car for months.
> 
> And shout out to my dad for the phrase "shady Craigslist deal".


	9. Chapter 9

Text from: Link Neal

(Link): wanna hang out this weekend?

(Rhett): can’t

(Rhett): going camping with vic

(Rhett): it’s our anniversary

(Link): oh congrats

(Link): have fun

(Rhett): thanks

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Dana!” Rhett said in delight as he rounded the counter at the cafe. “I thought you quit.” For the past few months, the barista had been some guy who’d just shrugged when Rhett asked what happened to Dana.

“Nah, I just had a really heavy course load this semester.” She leaned over the counter and whispered conspiratorially. “So how’s Link? A little birdie told me you’ve been hanging out.”

“A little birdie named Lauren?” She’d served them dinner one night at the cafe.

“Maaaaybe.” Today’s hair had thick, blunt bangs.

“Uh, I guess he’s okay? We were hanging out a lot while he was getting his apartment fixed back up, but now that it’s pretty much set I haven’t really seen him.” Rhett had been avoiding the arrival of the east-west bus since Link seemed to be avoiding him.

“That’s too bad. I thought you might have an, um… calming?... influence on him.”

“He said I was.” Rhett took his latte from Dana. “Thanks.”

“Then why’d y’all stop hanging out?” she asked.

Rhett sighed. “Victor freaked out that I let Link stay over the night his apartment building caught fire, and he didn’t let it go for a long time. I made the mistake of telling Link and I think maybe he feels guilty about it.”

Dana stared at him. “Are you really gonna let some dude bully you out of a friendship, and are you really gonna let that friend go without talking to him about it?”

“Vic’s not a bully!”

“I’m sure you know better than me,” she said primly. “Look, just talk to Link, okay?”

He knew she was right.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Text to: Link Neal

(Rhett): hey

(Rhett): can we hang out?

(Link): haven’t heard from you in a while

(Rhett): could say the same about you

(Rhett): been like three months

(Link): touche

(Link): if you wanna come over tonight

(Link): it’s wing wednesday at this bar by my place

(Link): so good

(Link): they have a dozen sauces

(Rhett): is this the bar you get thrown out of?

(Link): no no i have a different bar to get drunk and fight at

(Link): this is my wing bar

(Rhett): wings sound good but i’m not much of a bar guy tbh

(Link): that’s ok we can get em to go

~*~*~*~*~*

“Sidekicks Saloon?” Rhett looked up at the neon sign of dancing cowboy boots.

“Yeah, it’s kind of old school country and western themed.” Link said. “Pretty cool, actually.”

“That is cool.” They went inside. It was early enough that only a few people were in there--a couple giggly mom types with a pitcher of margaritas, some bros watching a baseball game on the big TV, a shaggy haired guy by the door who was apparently waiting for someone, because he kept checking his watch. A Loretta Lynn song played over the speakers.

Link ordered a double wing sampler at the bar, and the bartender told him it would be about fifteen minutes. “You want a drink while we wait?” he asked Rhett.

“Uh, sure. Rum and Coke?”

“Ooh, that sounds good. Two of those, please.”

They sat at the bar and sipped their drinks as they discussed the merits of baseball. (Rhett: tradition. Link: athletic men in tight pants.) Rhett had to admit that this was a much more pleasant bar than those he usually went to. Victor was always trying to get him to go to try craft beers at trendy places, which Rhett didn’t enjoy at all, but Sidekicks was nice. He’d consider coming back sometime.

And speaking of Victor...he and Link had finished their drinks by the time the wings were ready, and as they turned towards the door, a familiar blond Viking of a man walked in and leaned down to kiss the shaggy haired guy by the door.

Rhett’s stomach dropped. “Oh,” he said quietly.

“Rhett? You okay?” Link asked in concern. He looked up at Rhett, then glanced in the direction Rhett was staring. “You know that guy?”

“It’s Victor,” Rhett’s voice was faint. “Guess that’s why he thought I was gonna cheat with you.”

“That _motherfucker_ ,” Link hissed. Victor hadn’t noticed them yet. He was leaning in close to the other guy, giving him his full attention.

Rhett closed his eyes. “Link, don’t. Not right now.”

Link took a deep breath and hugged the bag of wings to his chest. “Are you gonna talk to him?”

Rhett shook his head. “Not here.”

“Then let’s go.” Link positioned himself to be between Victor and Rhett as they exited. He shifted the bag of wings and took Rhett’s arm more gently than Rhett would have thought possible. “You can do this, man.”

Rhett hoped that Victor would be so caught up in his infidelity that he wouldn’t notice them pass, and that Link wouldn’t flip out, but on both counts his hope was in vain. 

Victor looked up as they neared the table. “Rhett?” he asked. Rhett shook his head the tiniest bit and kept his eyes forward as he walked, but he could feel Link’s body growing tense as he turned towards Victor. _Oh no._

“Don’t talk to him, asshole,” Link spat. His grip on Rhett’s arm tightened.

“Who the fuck are you?” Victor demanded as the same time as Rhett said, “Link…” in a warning tone.

Victor stood up and looked Link up and down. “Oh, so this is Link?” He noticed Link’s hand on Rhett’s arm, and his lips curled in a sneer. “I knew he was more than your friend.”

Link dropped Rhett’s arm and poked Victor in the chest. The shaggy haired guy watched in wide-eyed shock. “That’s pretty fucking rich coming from you, you cheating piece of shit,” Link snarled.

“What the fuck.” Rhett threw up his hands. He didn’t know who he was more angry and disgusted with, Victor for being a lying, cheating hypocrite, or Link for being… Link. “You know what, I’m done with both of you.” He walked out of Sidekicks, leaving Link and Victor yelling at each other behind him.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Text to: Victor Hendrix

(Rhett): if it wasn’t clear, we’re through

(Rhett): don’t contact me again

(Rhett): sorry about Link though

(Rhett): he has some serious issues

~*~*~*~*~*~*

Text from: Link Neal

(Link): Rhett i’m so sorry

(Link): you needed my support but i lost my temper

(Link): again

(Link): i know i have to do better

(Link): you don’t have to forgive me

(Link): or be my friend anymore

(Link): but i have to do better

(Link): for myself

(Link): because last night

(Link): i’m more ashamed of that than anything i’ve ever done

(Link): even getting locked up

(Link): anyway

(Link): i won’t bother you anymore

(Link): just wanted you to know how sorry i am


	10. Chapter 10

It was another whiskey night for Rhett. There had been a lot of those lately.

He stared down into his glass. In the two weeks since the fiasco at Sidekicks, he’d come to realize two things:

-Dana was right, and Victor was a bully

-Rhett really, really liked Link, and it was as more than a friend

There were a couple problems with this. The main one was, of course, Link’s temper and instability. Rhett had been lulled into complacency by Link’s demeanor when they were hanging out, just the two of them--no trouble, no conflict. Of course he’d behave when there was no reason for him not to, but as soon as Rhett needed him, Link hadn’t hesitated in starting a fight. Rhett didn’t know if Link couldn’t or wouldn’t stop himself--the result was the same either way.

Link said in his text that he had to do better, for himself if not for Rhett, but what did that mean? There was no knowing.

The other issue was that Link had never given him any reason to believe that he considered Rhett anything more than a friend, other than the day they went to IKEA. He seemed flirty then, but maybe Rhett had just imagined it. Link certainly hadn’t acted that way again. Was it because he found out that Rhett had a boyfriend? Well, he didn’t anymore, but he didn’t have Link, either.

Rhett didn’t know what to do, so he poured himself another drink.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It took another week before Rhett could bring himself to tell Dana what happened.

“So you know how you said I should talk to Link?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well, I did, so we went to a bar to get wings, and my boyfriend was there, cheating on me, and Link got in a fight with him, so now I’m single and Link isn’t my friend anymore.”

“Holy shit. No wonder you’ve been acting weird lately.”

“Yeah.” Rhett’s shoulders slumped. “It really, really sucks.”

“I’m so sorry,” Dana said. “I don’t know what to say.”

“‘I’m sorry’ pretty much covers it, I think,” Rhett said. “Since I already said that it sucks.”

“Well, how about ‘your latte is on the house today’?”

Rhett smiled a little. It felt foreign. “Thanks, Dana.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

As the weeks turned into months, Rhett found that he didn’t miss Victor as much as he would have thought. They’d been together for over a year and spent at least one night a week at each others’ apartments, but after a month or so, it was like Vic had never been around at all. Other than a few pieces of clothing and some toiletries, he’d left no mark on Rhett’s place.

It made sense, though. It was a relationship more of convenience and sexual attraction than anything else. Rhett and Victor had never discussed a future for their relationship, never exchanged ‘I love you’s’, never even gone on more of a vacation than a weekend camping trip.

Link, on the other hand… Rhett missed Link. Even though he’d technically known Link longer than Victor, he’d really only hung out with Link maybe half a dozen times. But those few times left more of an impression on Rhett than all the time he’d spent with Victor. Link was funny and spontaneous, honest and genuine. It was just a shame about his temper.

When Rhett looked around his apartment, he saw the green throw from IKEA, the velvet desert painting, the vintage Waffle House mugs, the little amateur oil paintings--all things he’d purchased with Link. In just a few trips to the flea market, Link had left more of himself at Rhett’s place than Victor ever had.

Rhett wanted Link in his life.

But it was probably better that he wasn’t.

~**~*~*~*~

“Hey, can I have a business card?” Dana had a wool beanie on over long, straight hair today.

“Why, you need a bridge built?” Rhett asked as he pulled one out of his wallet and handed it over. He wondered if she was wearing the hat just for fashion, or if one could have a bad wig day, and if so, why not just take a wig off? It was probably fashion, he decided.

“Nah.” Dana stuck it in her pocket. “Link was just in here. He got mugged and his phone and wallet got stolen, so he lost your number. Asked me to get it. I figured this was the easiest way.”

“Dana!” Rhett was dismayed.

“What? He already had it.” She shrugged and put the latte on the counter.

“I… you… ugh!”

~*~*~*~*~*

Text to: Link Neal

(Rhett): hey

(Rhett): dana said you got mugged

(Rhett): hope you’re okay

(Link): gdi i told her not to tell you

(Link): she meddles too much 

(Rhett): agreed

(Link): i’m ok

(Link): just scared

(Link): thanks for checking on me

Rhett got the feeling that Link wanted to end the conversation, but he wasn’t ready to stop yet.

(Rhett): did you fight the mugger?

(Link): lol

(Link): no, I froze

(Link): first time that’s ever happened

(Link): probably bc that’s the first time i’ve been held up at gunpoint

(Rhett): jesus christ

(Rhett): are you sure you’re ok?

(Link): i will be

(Link): i promise

(Link): please don’t worry about me

Rhett was going to worry about him. He stared at his phone and made a decision.

(Rhett): i miss you

There was a very long pause, so long that Rhett thought he’d been ghosted. Finally a message appeared.

(Link): did you break up with victor?

(Rhett): yeah

(Rhett): that night

(Rhett): told him we were done and blocked his number

(Rhett): haven’t seen him since

(Link): okay good

(Link): if you hadn’t

(Link): i couldn’t see you

Rhett frowned. What did that mean?

(Link): i miss you too

(Link): are you willing to wait?

(Rhett): wait for what?

(Link): i told you i had to do better

(Link): so i’m working on that

(Rhett): how long?

(Link): two months

(Link): after the 17th

(Rhett): that is very specific

(Rhett): i’m willing to wait

(Rhett): but i can’t wait to see you

(Link): same

(Link): so i’ll see you then

(Link): can’t talk til then either

(Link): so bye for now

(Rhett): oh

(Rhett): ok

(Rhett): bye

He put his phone on the couch cushion beside him and stared off into space. Rhett hadn’t really had any expectations for this conversation other than making sure Link was okay after being mugged, but it somehow turned into something vaguely flirty, and maybe a date? He wasn’t sure.

It was going to be a long two months.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

Rhett put the 17th into his calendar, even though he didn’t need to. There was no way he was going to forget it.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Link’s text said, “ _after_ the 17th,” so Rhett had been planning to text him on the 18th, but he got a text on the evening of the 17th.

Text from: Link Neal

(Link): [img]

It was a picture of a certificate of some kind. Rhett opened the image and enlarged it. It said that Link had completed a six month anger management course as of that afternoon.

(Rhett): wow

(Rhett): is this your doing better?

(Link): part of it

(Link): i signed up right after the fight at sidekicks

(Link): i’m also going to a therapy group

(Link): and i ghosted sierra

(Link): she’s a bad influence

(Rhett): so do you feel like you’re doing better?

(Link): yes

(Link): absolutely

(Link): better than i ever have

(Rhett): link i’m so proud of you

(Rhett): and happy for you

(Rhett): so what now?

(Link): it’s wing wednesday at sidekicks tomorrow

(Link): wanna try again?

(Rhett): uhhh

(Rhett): what about vic?

(Rhett): what if he’s there?

(Link): oh don’t worry about him

(Link): he got banned for slapping me

(Rhett): wtf


	11. Chapter 11

Rhett knocked on the door. Link must have been waiting, because he opened it almost immediately. He smiled shyly at Rhett. “Hey. Come in.”

“Whoa.” Rhett looked around the apartment. Last time he’d seen it, it had still been pretty sparse, but now it was fully furnished and decorated. He pointed at a mid-century modern side table. “Didn’t you have one just like that before the fire? I remember noticing it, because I liked it so much.”

Link laughed. “Actually, about five months ago, I got a certified letter from the restoration company that basically said ‘if you don’t get your stuff, we’re throwing it away’, which confused me, because didn’t it all get destroyed? Turns out that only some of it got destroyed and the rest was in storage. It’s the same table.”

“It looks really good.” Rhett looked at Link, who was wearing an olive green cardigan and had a fresh haircut. “You look good, too.” He’d decided he was going to slowly, gently, pursue Link, but even if he hadn’t, Link still looked good.

Link flushed. “Let’s go eat.”

“Tell me about your fight with Victor,” Rhett said as they walked to Sidekicks. “Just the cliffs notes.”

“I can tell you’re old because you said ‘cliffs notes’.” Link stuck his hands in his pockets and shivered. “Kids have sparknotes these days.”

“That is _so_ not what I asked about.”

Link stuck his tongue out at Rhett. “Fine. We cussed at each other a little more, I said he wasn’t fooling anyone by hiding his insecurity with that hypermasculine Viking bullshit and promiscuity, he slapped me, and I realized you left so I ran out but you were already gone. Then I went home, punched a hole in the wall, cried a lot, texted you, and drank myself to sleep.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.” They walked in silence for a while. Finally Link said, “I didn’t think you were ever going to speak to me again.”

“Then why did you ask Dana to get my number?”

Link shrugged. “Hope springs eternal, I guess?”

“I wasn’t going to talk to you,” Rhett confessed, “until Dana told me you got mugged.”

“Fucking busybody,” Link muttered.

Rhett snickered. “If she wasn’t such a busybody, we wouldn’t be hanging out right now.”

Link heaved an exasperated sigh. “I _guess_.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*

There was something Rhett found very amusing about watching Link pick apart wings and get hot sauce all over his perfect manicure.

“What are you grinning about over there?” Link asked.

“Your wing technique is so… dainty.” Rhett pulled his wing apart in the same way Link did. “It’s adorable.”

Link froze and furrowed his brow. “Are you making fun of me?”

“No! I’d never make fun of you.” Rhett reconsidered. “Well, not in a mean way, at least.”

“Okay.” Link went back to stripping meat off the bone. “When we’re done eating, let’s go back to my place and I’ll tell you why I’m like this. I don’t know if you need to know, but I need to tell you.”

Rhett nodded and bit into a wing. “I’m happy to listen.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Look, if you sit in the chair, and I lie on the couch like this--” Link reclined on a throw pillow with his back to Rhett’s chair so that he faced away from Rhett, “--we’ll look like a shrink and a patient in a New Yorker cartoon.”

“Do you think any doctors actually sit like that when they see patients?” Rhett wondered.

“Doubt it.”

“Gimme your glasses,” Rhett demanded.

“Uh, what?”

“Doctors wear glasses. I’m the doctor, so I need your glasses.”

“Oh, we’re roleplaying now? You’re a fucking weirdo.” Link handed over the glasses. Rhett put them on and reeled a little at his blurred vision. He folded his hands and put on a serious voice.

“So, Mr. Neal, why are you like this?”

“Well, Dr. McLauglin, my parents divorced when I was a baby, so I was shuttled back and forth between houses, and they both dated and remarried multiple times. We moved a lot, and I had step siblings, and half siblings, and there were always different rules for me and for them. No stability.” He paused. “My dad--I’m named for him, him and my grandpa, I’m Charles Lincoln Neal the Third, really--when he got remarried, he sort of replaced me with his new family. That hurt.”

“And your mother?”

“She was a single mom for a lot of the time. I lived with her, mostly. My dad didn’t help.” Link made a disgusted noise.

“What’s your relationship with them these days?”

“Oh, they’ve both passed, years ago. I’m not really in touch with any of my siblings or my stepdad. I don’t even know if he’s still my stepdad, now that my mom’s gone.”

“Huh. I don’t know, either,” Rhett said. “How about school?”

“Well, I didn’t have the most stable home life, so I wasn’t the best student. My report card was always full of Cs and notes like ‘Link is so bright. If he could apply himself, he would be an excellent student!’. And, of course, the fights.” He sighed. “So many fights, over such stupid shit. I’d fight anybody over anything. I got suspended so many times I almost got expelled and sent to an alternative school.”

“And college?”

“Grade-wise, more of the same. I didn’t get into as many fights, because I met Sierra and she got me into partying. Bars, clubs, raves. And…” Here Link’s voice cracked. “Drugs.”

“Drugs?” 

“Adderall. Ecstasy. Xanax. Cocaine, a few times.” He covered his face with his hands. “I slowed down a lot after I graduated, but I didn’t quit until I went to jail.”

“What did you study?”

“Economics. I like numbers.”

“Me too.” Rhett took off Link’s glasses. They were giving him a headache. “Did you go to jail for drugs?

Link pushed himself up and twisted around to look at Rhett. Like the movie cliche where the plain girl lets her hair down and take off her glasses and is suddenly beautiful, Link was gorgeous with his glasses off and his hair all messy. Of course, Rhett thought he was lovely at all times, but he was especially beautiful right now.

He was also giving Rhett a very serious look. “No, I did not go to jail for drugs. I might tell you about it one day, but not now. I just.. I can’t, okay?” He crumpled down onto the pile of throw pillows. “I can’t.”

“Link.” Rhett set the glasses down on the side table and went over to the couch. He gently touched Link’s shoulder. “Are you crying?”

“No,” Link mumbled into the pillow. 

“Uh _huh_ ,” Rhett said skeptically. He poked Link. “Scoot over so I can sit.”

There was some awkward shuffling that ended with Link lying halfway in Rhett’s lap. He wouldn’t look Rhett in the face. Rhett wasn’t sure what to do with his hands. He settled with putting one on Link’s waist and stroking Link’s hair with the other. He could feel how tense the other man was.

“It’s okay, Link. It’s okay,” he murmured. 

Link groaned. “I’m such a fuckup. I can’t believe you want anything to do with me.”

“Oh, stop. Everything you just told me? You’re not doing it anymore, except maybe fighting people.” Rhett traced a finger along the edge of Link’s ear, gently touching the earring there. “I _did_ think you were a fuckup after you fought with Vic, but you were, uh, defending my honor, I guess? Then afterwards I missed you, a lot, but I figured it was better if you weren’t in my life because you were such a loose cannon.”

“Did you come back because I’m working at being better?”

“Yeah.”

Link rolled over and smiled up at Rhett. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Of course.”

“I signed up for that course, and the therapy group, mostly because I was so ashamed and disgusted with myself, but I also hoped that if I did better, you might be my friend again.”

Rhett snorted. “Link, that’s not a secret.”

“Oh.”

By now, Link had relaxed into Rhett’s lap. Rhett had one hand resting on Link’s chest, above his heart. He could feel Link’s heartbeat. His other hand was combing through Link’s dark hair. Link’s eyes were closed and he looked at peace.

Rhett took his hand from Link’s chest and gently touched his cheek. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered.

Link smirked. “Usually, guys who want to get in my pants start out with something like that. I don’t know if I should be impressed or disappointed that it took you two years.”

“ _What_?” Rhett’s hands froze.

“Rhett, I was _joking_!” Link opened his eyes. “Well, not about the guys who want to fuck me. They’re very real. Being good-looking can be a blessing and a curse.” He read Rhett’s expression. “I pretty much always turn them down.”

Rhett went back to stroking Link’s hair. “Where are you meeting these guys?”

“Usually a bar. Sometimes the bus, sometimes other places.” He closed his eyes and melted into Rhett’s hands. “You don’t get people hitting on you?”

“Uh, no.”

“Really, the way you look? Maybe they’re intimidated by your height… I know I was,” Link said, mostly to himself.

“Are you intimidated by me now?” Rhett asked.

“I haven’t been intimidated by you since you bribed me with dinner.”

“It wasn’t a bribe, damnit!”


	12. Chapter 12

After a few weeks of wing Wednesdays, shady Craigslist deals (“They’re a lot less shady with you than with Sierra, though. She’s like five foot nothing.”), and antique malls, Link looked up at Rhett and asked, “So, are these, like, dates?”

Rhett, who very much wanted them to be dates, said, “Do you _want_ them to be dates?”

Link grimaced. “Yeah, but I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m a fu--”

“If you say you’re a fuckup, I will throw you under the north-south bus,” Rhett warned.

“Harsh.”

Rhett shrugged. “Your actions have consequences, dude.”

“Fine. I don’t know if that’s a good idea, because you have your shit together, and you always have, and I’m doing better, but I still have a long way to go. I mean, I almost shoved that guy at Sidekicks last week. I don’t even remember what he said that pissed me off so much.” 

“But you _didn’t_ shove him,” Rhett pointed out. He’d congratulated Link at the time, too, but apparently it hadn’t stuck.

Link blinked. “Huh.”

“Look,” Rhett said. “How about this: _I_ want them to be dates. I’ve been into you for a long time. I used to go down to the cafe just to watch you get off the bus.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re pretty distinctive looking, and you weren’t subtle.”

“Oh.” Rhett’s face fell. Link laughed at his expression.

“These can be dates, Rhett. _But_ ,” here Link held up a finger in warning. “Only because I like you so much.”

“Then let’s go eat somewhere fancier than Sidekicks.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Oh, wow,” Rhett said when Link opened the door. “You look really nice.” 

“It’s a date, Rhett. You’re supposed to dress up.” Link had on a gray dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a black tie.

“Uh.” Rhett looked down. His shirt was blue with little bomb pops on it. Link giggled.

“Guess you didn’t get the memo. C’mon, I’ll go change.” Rhett followed him into the bedroom and sat on the bed as Link opened the closet and flicked through his shirts. They were divided into short and long sleeve, and then arranged by color. A sure sign of a deranged mind, in Rhett’s opinion.

“Did you get all those since the fire?” Rhett asked. Link pulled out a red plaid, considered it, shook his head, and hung it back up.

“Some, but most of them were in storage with my furniture at the restoration company.” He held a denim shirt up to himself and nodded before handing it to Rhett. Link pulled off his tie and began to unbutton his shirt.

“Do you want me to leave?” Rhett asked.

Link gave him a weird look. “You can if you want, but I don’t care.”

So Rhett stayed and watched Link take his shirt off. His breath caught in his throat a little. Link was broad shouldered and toned. He had dark hair sprinkled across his chest and abdomen, and two tattoos: a stylized flame over his heart, about palm sized, and two entwined serpents on his back, a double ouroboros, from the top of his shoulder blades to the bottom of his ribs. At least Rhett thought they were serpents at first, but their heads were more like dogs or foxes or stags, maybe.

Link took the denim shirt from Rhett’s unresisting hands. “Like what you see?”

“Very much so. What do the tattoos mean?”

“Nothing, really.” Link buttoned the shirt up to the top button. He was a pretty conservative dresser for someone with an otherwise unconservative style. “Just liked the aesthetics.”

“I like it, too.” Rhett stood up and put a hand on Link’s waist and gently pulled him closer. It wasn’t quite clear where they stood on physical touch yet, but apparently this was okay, because Link put his arms around Rhett’s neck and rested his head against the taller man’s shoulder. Rhett put his lips on Link’s hair.

“Thank you,” Link said softly.

“For what?”

“Taking a chance on me. The last person to do that was my boss, when he hired me.” There was a long pause. “Before that… I don’t know.”

Rhett hugged him tighter.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

They moved slowly, at Link’s insistence. He had some hangup about physical affection that he couldn’t or wouldn’t articulate to Rhett, and while Rhett wasn’t exactly happy to wait, he would never question or disrespect Link’s boundaries.

It became their normal routine to hang out after work on Monday and Wednesday (Link’s therapy group met on Tuesday and Thursday). He would get off the north-south bus and come up to Rhett’s apartment. Sometimes they’d go out to eat, sometimes they’d go see a movie or do some other activity, or sometimes they’d lounge around. Occasionally they’d go treasure hunting on the weekends, but now that they had an established relationship, the two men didn’t exactly need that excuse to spend time together.

It was on a Monday a couple months after they’d had their relationship talk that Link made his move. It was a staying-in day. They were cuddled up on Rhett’s boring but extremely large and comfortable couch. Rhett was lying back, propped up on the bright IKEA throw pillows, with Link resting on his chest, covered up with the green blanket. _House Hunters: International_ played on the TV. A dead-eyed realtor showed an American couple a condo in Nairobi and smiled woodenly as the wife complained that it didn’t have enough closet space.

“I can’t believe you like this show,” Rhett said.

“I just like seeing what houses are like all over the world, is all,” Link replied. “And I like you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Link pulled himself up and kissed Rhett. His lips were as soft as Rhett had imagined. The kiss was gentle and chaste at first, but quickly grew hungry and intense. Link broke it first. He pulled back, breathing heavily. His face was flushed. “Wow.”

Rhett was breathing heavily, too. “Yeah.”

Link took off his glasses and dropped them on the coffee table. They landed with a clack. He wove his fingers into Rhett’s hair and dove back into the kiss. 

Rhett was in heaven. Kissing Link was nothing like kissing Victor. Kissing Victor had just been a step to complete on the way to sex, but kissing Link was an activity unto itself. Even if this didn’t progress any further, Rhett was happy. And it didn’t seem like it was going to go any further, because Link froze as soon as Rhett slid his hands under the hem of Link’s shirt.

“Stop there, okay?” Link murmured against Rhett’s lips.

Rhett rubbed his thumbs against Link’s sides. “Okay, but why?”

“Because if we go further, there’s a conversation we have to have, and I don’t want to stop kissing you.”

This was reasonable, so Rhett kept his hands on Link’s waist, and they kissed for so long that Link missed the nine o’clock east-west bus and Rhett had to drive him home.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter mentions sex work, including sex work related slurs, and some less than healthy opinions about that. If you're sensitive to that sort of thing, please take care of yourself and proceed with caution.

Whatever the conversation that Link needed to have before they could advance with their physical affection, he _really_ didn’t want to have. He danced around the subject and avoided it as much as possible. Link would touch Rhett above the waist, press against him, and grab his butt, and let Rhett do the same to him, but that was all. Rhett was a patient man, but after a few weeks, he was fed up.

“Okay, Link, stop.” Rhett removed Link’s hand from his butt. “This is getting ridiculous.”

Link looked at Rhett’s hand holding his wrist and yanked it out. “What do you mean?”

“You said you needed to have a conversation with me. I’ve tried to start it a couple times and you just keep dodging it. I want to have it now.”

Link’s eyes flickered around the room and he chewed on his lip nervously. “Uh…”

“Is it about our relationship?

“What?”

“Our relationship!” Rhett said. “Like, are we exclusive? Are we boyfriends? That sort of thing.”

“Oh. Um.” Link looked at him blankly for a moment. “I mean, I’ve been exclusive the whole time, and I’ve been calling you my boyfriend at therapy group for a long time. That’s not what I needed to talk about, though.”

“Your boyfriend, huh?” Rhett was touched in spite of his annoyance.

“Oh, you knew that.” Link crossed his arms.

“Yeah, guess I did.” Rhett looked at Link’s face. He looked apprehensive. No, scared. “Are you okay?”

“No.” Link took a deep breath. “I need to tell you why I went to jail.”

“Ah.” Link’s big secret. The only thing he outright refused to tell Rhett. “Let’s go sit down.”

Link curled up on one end of the bland couch and wrapped himself in the green blanket. His body language screamed _don’t touch me_ , so Rhett sat at the other end. Link was tense and shaking.

“Link… it’s gonna be okay,” Rhett said.

“No, it’s not,” Link replied in a shuddery voice. “You’re gonna hate me, you’re gonna dump me, throw me out… I don’t wanna tell you, but you’d find out eventually somehow.”

“Link, I would never--”

“Prostitution.”

“Sorry?”

“Prostitution. I went to jail for prostitution.”

Rhett sat stunned into silence. Link buried his face in his hands and sobbed.

Out of all the things Rhett had imagined, prostitution had not been one of them. It hadn’t even crossed his mind. Destruction of property, criminal mischief, vandalism, disorderly conduct, sure, but _prostitution_?

Dimly he became aware of Link still crying at the other end of the couch, so he crawled over to wrap his arms around the other man.

“What are you doing?” Link mumbled.

“Giving you a hug. Obviously.”

“What, you’re just okay with this?”

“No, I’m not okay with it!” Rhett snapped. “I’m pretty fucking shocked. I don’t know what to think. I have about a million questions. But I care about you, and I can’t just sit here and watch you cry.”

Link sniffled and leaned against Rhett’s shoulder. “What do you want to know?

“How old were you?”

“When I started, or when I got locked up?”

“Both, I guess. And how long did you do it?”

Link thought for a moment. “I started in college, so twenty one or twenty two? Then I got caught when I was thirty two, so on and off for about ten years.”

“Were you, uh, trafficked?”

Link laughed. It was an ugly, sarcastic laugh. He pushed Rhett off him a little and looked at him. “Really, Rhett? _That’s_ where your mind goes? I don’t know why you insist on thinking of me as some unfortunate innocent, but I’m not. No, I was not trafficked. I was a slut. I went to clubs, got fucked up, and went home with hot guys. One night a guy hit me up and I turned him down because he wasn’t very attractive. Then he offered me two hundred dollars to suck his dick and suddenly he was a lot more attractive. I couldn’t keep a job and I had drugs to buy, so finding out that there were people willing to pay a lot of money to fuck me was pretty great. I did it less as I got older, but I paid off my student loans through Backpage and Craigslist. So now you know. Your boyfriend is a whore.”

“Don’t talk about yourself like that.”

Link shoved Rhett, who fell back onto the couch in shock. “It’s true!”

“Link, calm down.”

“Fuck you. I’m leaving.” Link tried to stand but got tangled in the green blanket. Rhett remembered the day he bought the blanket at IKEA. Link said he never had people stay over at his apartment in case something ‘went wrong’. He’d rather be able to leave from someone else’s place. Well, here he was, in Rhett’s apartment, and something had just gone wrong.

“Oh no, you’re not. We’re talking about this.” Rhett grabbed Link’s arm just as he escaped the blanket. There was a brief tussle that ended with a leg sweep from Rhett that surprised both of them. He fell over on top of Link and quickly pinned the dark-haired man’s wrists to the floor.

Link struggled, but Rhett held firm. “ _Fuck_ you!” he spat. “Let me _go_!”

“I can wait all night, Link.” His voice was calm, but inside, Rhett felt anything but. He was shocked by Link’s confession, angry at the way Link was treating him, and terrified that Link was going to sabotage their relationship. 

Link’s gaze flickered all over the room, landing anywhere but Rhett. He yanked his wrists against Rhett’s hands again. “Fuck you, asshole.”

“Oh, you’re one to talk.” Mentally, he kicked himself for stooping to Link’s level, but luckily Link didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy glaring at Rhett. 

“Why are you even bothering with me, man?” Link chewed on his lip nervously as he waited for an answer. His breathing was rapid and shallow.

“Because I _like_ you!” 

Link rolled his eyes. “Why? I’m a whore and a fuckup.”

“Okay, even if that were true, and I don’t think it is, I’d still like you. Come _on_ , Link!” If he’d been holding Link’s shoulders instead of his wrists, Rhett would have shaken him. “We’ve talked about this. You’re not a fuckup.”

“But I _am_ a whore. I have the record to prove it.” Link giggled. He sounded more than a little hysterical.

Rhett squeezed his eyes closed and took a few deep breaths. “Why do you always insist on being so hard on yourself? Fuckup, slut, whore… are you even hearing yourself here? That’s not who I see. Yeah, I used to think you were an asshole, but not anymore. You have a good job, you have a nice apartment, you’re going to therapy, you’re trying to do better for yourself, and you have a pretty great boyfriend if I do say so myself. Doesn’t sound like a fuckup to me.”

Link snorted a little at the boyfriend comment in spite of his anger, then said, “You _cannot_ be okay with me being a prostitute.”

“Well, I don’t know, Link! Sounds like you’ve made that decision for me, since I had to knock you down to stop you from walking out of here instead of talking to me.”

Link looked from side to side, where Rhett still had his hands pinned to the rug. “If I agree to talk to you, will you let me up?”

“If I let you up, will you promise not to run out the door?”

“Yeah.” Rhett let go. Link rolled over into a fetal position and rubbed his wrists. Rhett leaned over to hug him, but Link shook his head. “Don’t. Just… just give me a couple minutes, okay?” 


	14. Chapter 14

Rhett left him curled up on the rug and went to the kitchen to get them a couple glasses of ice water. He lingered in the kitchen for a few minutes to give Link time to recover his composure. By the time he got back into the living room, Link was back on the end of the couch, wrapped in the green blanket and looking miserable. Rhett handed him a glass of water and a pen.

“What’s this for?” Link held up the pen.

Rhett twiddled his fingers. “Spinnin’.”

Link took a few swallows of water before putting his glass on the table and doing a trick that flipped the pen completely around his fingers. “How’d you know I liked pen spinning?”

“You did it the morning after the fire.”

“That was ages ago.”

“Well, I was really impressed.”

Link did a different trick. “I’ve never talked to anyone about this before.”

Rhett raised his eyebrows. “But you’ll talk to me?”

“Well, I don’t want to, but I don’t want to lose you, either! And you fucking tackled me and said we had to talk instead of throwing me out like I thought you would, so I guess that’s what we’re doing now. Gotta say, this isn’t what I expected to be doing with my night.”

“I didn’t tackle you.”

“Oh, fuck off with your semantics.”

Rhett ran his hands through his hair. “So is there anything you don’t want me to ask?”

Link made a face and spun the pen. “You can ask whatever you want. If I don’t want to answer it, I’ll let you know.”

“When was the last time you slept with someone?”

“For money, or just in general?”

“For money.” Rhett hadn’t slept with anyone since he broke up with Victor. He was a little curious about the second part, too--earlier, Link had said he’d been exclusive ‘the entire time,’ but hadn’t specified how long that was. This wasn’t the time to ask, though.

“Um.” Link thought. “Ten years. Almost eleven. And I only got caught because it was in a car. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

“Did you do any weird shit?”

Link rolled his eyes. “I don’t know how you’re defining ‘weird shit’, but no. I only did two things: I sucked guys off, and I let them fuck me from behind. Everything else was too intimate.”

“Sucking dick wasn’t intimate?” Rhett asked, incredulous. His experience suggested otherwise.

Link got a pained expression on his face. “I don’t know, Rhett! When I started, I was having a lot of casual hookups anyway, and I was usually pretty fucked up for most of it. My standards were pretty messed up.” He sighed and flipped the pen. “It’s different now, of course.”

“Did you kiss them?”

“Ugh, no. Anybody I liked enough to kiss wouldn’t have to pay me.”

“What about the internet?”

“You mean Craigslist and Backpage?” Rhett nodded. “Oh man, I loved Backpage.” Link burst out laughing at Rhett’s shocked expression. “It’s true! After I graduated college, I quit going to bars and clubs and taking drugs so much, but I still had problems keeping a job and I had loans to pay back, so ‘men seeking men’ it was. It was really nice to be able to select people and schedule it from the comfort from my own home, you know? And Backpage had a section were you could talk to other people about clients, and say oh, this guy is nice, this guy is a creep, that kind of thing. Whitelists, blacklists. That’s why I liked it. Craigslist was sketchier.”

Rhett was quiet for a few long moments. Finally he said, “Asking these questions is kind of like watching a car wreck. I hate it, but I can’t look away.”

“Do you want to stop?” Link asked softly.

“No, I just want to get it out of my system, and never ask again.” Rhett rubbed his beard. “How much did you charge?”

“Um, pass on the actual amounts, but I’ll tell you this: nice guys paid less, creeps paid more, and the guy who wanted me to shave everything so I’d look ‘more boyish’ paid a fucking premium for _that_ service.” Link shuddered.

“Ew.”

“Yeah, I hated him, but I charged him more money every time, and every time he paid it. And we’re talking a lot of money, like enough to cover my rent and car payment and have a little left over. He moved away eventually and he actually asked me to go with him, can you believe that? I told him to fuck off and blocked his number.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t smash his windshield or something,” Rhett said.

“Ooh, that would have been good. I was just glad he was gone.” Link spun the pen. Anything else you want to know?”

“Is this why you don’t want people to stay over at your place? Because something went wrong?”

“Yes. And pass on the details of what went wrong.”

That ‘pass’ didn’t make Rhett happy. It left far too much to the imagination. “Did you ever catch anything? No passing on this one.”

“Uh, oral herpes. The cold sore kind.”

“ _Link_! We’ve been kissing!”

Link scowled at him. “It’s not a big deal! I don’t have an outbreak. I wouldn’t kiss you if I did. Anyway, you probably have it already. Something like two thirds of population does, so don’t freak the fuck out. Jesus.”

“Sorry.” Rhett drank the last of his water and set the glass on the table. “I have one more question.”

“Okay. What?”

“Can I hug you now?”

“Yeah.” Link tossed the pen onto the table. It slid off onto the floor. “I’m surprised you even want to.”

Rhett slid down the couch and tucked himself under the green blanket before wrapping his arms around Link. “I’m not gonna lie, I have a lot to think about.”

Link swiveled his eyes around the room but wouldn’t actually look Rhett in the face. “I bet.”

“Well, when you said ‘prostitution,’ I imagined, like, hanging out on streetcorners at 2 in the morning? And, I know how stupid this is, dressed in fishnets and--stop laughing at me!” Rhett had to admit, though, that it was nice to feel Link shaking with laughter instead of shaking with nerves.

“Oh my god, Rhett.”

“I said I knew it was stupid! Anyway, what you were actually doing after you quit picking guys up at clubs sounds like probably the smartest, safest way to do it, so…”

Link turned and looked Rhett straight in the eyes. “And now it’s gone.”

“What?”

“Yeah, in 2018 the government passed laws that were meant to stop online sex trafficking, but what it really did was kill Backpage and the client blacklists and whitelists. I keep up with some people I knew back then, and they really did have to go back out onto the street.”

“That’s awful,” Rhett said. He held Link a little tighter as visions of _what could have been_ swam in his mind. 

“I would have been okay, Rhett. I was only doing it in emergencies by the end. Of course, you know when that extra cash would have come in really handy? When I got out of jail, and I didn’t have a job, or anywhere to stay, and I had a bunch of fines to pay on top of that. That was a hard year.” He laughed humorlessly and sighed. “I want to go home now.”

“Sure. You know we’re okay, right?”

Link furrowed his brow. “Didn’t you _just_ say you had a lot to think about?”

“What you said about your friends from back in the day simplified it a lot for me. And it would be pretty hypocritical for me to hold it against you when I’m constantly telling you not to hold your past against yourself, you know?” He kissed Link on the cheek. “You’ve never lied to me. You’ve never given me any reason not to trust you. And it might be selfish, but I don’t want to give you up.”

Link slung an arm around Rhett’s neck and pressed his face into Rhett’s shoulder. “Why are you so nice to me?” he asked in a cracked voice.

“Being nice is easy. You should try it sometime.”

“Fuck you.”

Rhett laughed. “Come on, let’s get you home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FOSTA-SESTA (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act and Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act) is another example of the road to hell being paved with good intentions. Support safe and legal sex work, y'all.


	15. Chapter 15

Link spent the next two weeks making excuses to avoid coming over to Rhett’s apartment for their usual after work dates, which was probably a good thing, because he wasn’t actually as okay with Link’s past as he’d thought he was.

This presented a problem. Usually his brother would be the first person he’d go to with something like this, but it wasn’t an option this time. It wasn’t something he could talk about with his work friends, either, for obvious reasons. His poker buddies were out of the question, as well--Victor was in their extended friend group.

That left just one person: Dana.

Rhett glanced around the cafe. It was empty, as it so often was. He wondered, not for the first time, how it managed to stay open. “So, if someone told you a really big secret, and you said you were okay with it, but you weren’t, really, and you didn’t know what to do, what would you do?”

Dana stared at him. “What on earth are you talking about?” Her hair was springy curls today.

“Uhh…”

“Wait, is this about Link? Lauren said she hasn’t seen him walk past for a while.”

“Jesus, Dana!” Rhett slapped the counter. “Are the two of you ever going to quit?”

“I don’t know. Are you ever going to stop being interesting? I had to buy Lauren a burrito, by the way, because I thought you’d start dating Link way sooner. I can’t believe you dated that other guy for so long.”

“You are such a pain in the ass.”

“Whatever.” Dana waved away his complaint. “So what’s his big secret? I always wondered what his deal was.”

Rhett stared at her in astonishment. “I’m not telling you his secret! Just, it was something I really didn’t expect, and I told him I was okay with it.”

Dana put a latte on the counter. “But you aren’t.”

“No. Well, I don’t know. It’s complicated. But Link must know, because he’s been avoiding me for two weeks.”

“You must be okay _enough_ with it, because you miss him enough to want him back. So I think you need to really pinpoint the part that you _aren’t_ okay with, and decide if you can live with that.” She rang up his purchase and held out her hand for payment.

“Huh.” He handed over his card. “That actually helps.”

Dana grinned smugly.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Rhett pondered the question of what, exactly, about Link’s past as a sex worker bothered him. He wasn’t opposed to voluntary sex work, at least in theory, so it wasn’t that. He decided to work through it step by step. It took a while.

Link was a college student who partied a lot, did drugs, and hooked up--that described a lot of the kids that Rhett went to school with, and occasionally Rhett himself, if he were to be honest, and most of them had turned out alright. And Link had turned out alright, too, eventually. So it wasn’t that.

It wasn’t Link’s idea to begin charging for sex. Some thirsty guy offered. Rhett believed him on that--enough of the other things that Link had told him put him in a bad light, so there was no reason for him to lie. Link had a history of making bad decisions, and that probably wasn’t the worst one. So it wasn’t that.

Was it the duration? _Ten years_? Rhett was a little unclear on the timeline. It sounded like at first Link hooked up with guys at clubs while he was in college so he could buy drugs, and then later put ads online when he couldn’t keep jobs. Rhett could only imagine how unstable a younger Link would have been, especially coupled with occasional drug use. He wondered what kind of jobs Link had, and what kind of spectacular quitting or firing stories he had. He’d have to ask sometime. Ten years, on and off, not full time. That didn’t bother Rhett too much, so it wasn’t that.

Link kissed him, and said that anyone he liked enough to kiss would never have to pay, so it wasn’t that.

There were only two things that Link would do with clients: he would suck them off, and he would let them fuck him from behind. These were both things that Rhett very much wanted to happen. He wanted to tangle his fingers in Link’s dark hair and see Link’s blue eyes looking up at him, and he wanted to see Link to fall apart with his slender hips under Rhett’s hands. But how many clients had seen the same thing?

And there it was.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Text to: Link Neal

(Rhett): please come over

(Rhett): i miss you

(Rhett): and i need to talk to you

(Link): about my past?

(Rhett): yeah

(Rhett): i said i was okay with it

(Rhett): but it bothered me more than i realized

(Link): figured that would happen

(Link): i’m not coming over again

(Link): i can’t trust you anymore

(Rhett): what

(Rhett): why not?

(Link): do i really have to spell this out?

(Rhett): apparently

(Link): one of the first things i ever told you about myself

(Link): was that i never had people stay at my place bc it was easier to escape than make someone leave

(Link): when i tried to leave your place

(Link): you knocked me over and held me down

(Link): so easily

(Link): you’re probably the most decent person i’ve ever met

(Link): but i was still terrified

(Rhett): Link

(Rhett): i never meant to

(Rhett): i would never hurt you

(Rhett): you know that

(Link): and yet you did

(Rhett): i am so sorry

(Link): if you want to show me you’re sorry

(Link): fuck off and leave me alone


	16. Chapter 16

“Wow, you look awful. You sick? You want some tea instead of a coffee?” Dana asked.

“I’m not sick,” Rhett said.

Dana gave him a skeptical look as she steamed his milk. “Then why do you look like that? Everything okay?”

Rhett considered trying to avoid the topic, but decided that Dana, being Dana, would figure out a way to worm it out of him, so it would just be easier to tell her. “I broke up with Link.”

Dana’s jaw dropped and the little metal pitcher of milk slipper from her fingers. “Ah! _Fuck_!” She grabbed a stack of paper towels and dropped them onto the steaming puddle. “What happened? It’s only been a couple months. You were so happy!”

“I don’t really want to get into the details.”

“Was it his secret?” She scooped up the sopping towels.

“God damn it, Dana! You’re too fucking invested in my relationships! You and Lauren. If you must know, no, it wasn’t. It was my fault, I fucked up, it can’t be fixed, and I don’t want to hear another fucking word about it from either of you. If Link ever shows up here again, which I doubt he will, I don’t want either of you to mention it to him, either. Is that understood?”

She looked at him, wide-eyed, and nodded silently before beginning to steam another pitcher of milk. Rhett rubbed his face and groaned. He’d known Dana for over two years and sure, she could be nosy and annoying, but she was also sweet and efficient, and she really had given him some good advice. She didn’t deserve to be yelled at.

“Dana, I’m sorry. That was a complete overreaction. Let me try again.” He took a deep breath. “Link and I broke up. It wasn’t about his secret. It was my fault. I don’t want to talk about it, so please don’t bring it up.”

Dana set the latte on the counter. “Okay. I’ll tell Lauren, too.”

“I really am sorry.”

“I know. And I know how much you like Link. He made you way happier than that other guy.”

“Victor?” Rhett asked. “How could you tell?”

Dana shrugged. “I’ve seen you five days a week for years, Rhett. Even when you and Victor were dating, you’d talk all about how you and Link drove out to 151st and god knows where to buy a TV stand or something, but you’d hardly ever mention Victor at all.”

“God damn it,” Rhett said. “I really fucked up, didn’t I?” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*

Rhett really had fucked up, and he hadn’t even realized it at the time. He’d just been so desperate and afraid that Link was going to torpedo their relationship that he ended up doing it himself.

He tried to talk to his brother about it, but his refusal to give any details about what Link’s confession was, or what he did to make Link not trust him, just resulted in an exasperated, “Well, then I don’t know what to tell you, bro.”

He knew his poker buddies would be no help, but figured getting out of the house would be a good idea, so he went anyway. Unfortunately, the first thing Rhett saw when he walked in the door was that someone had invited Victor, but no one had warned him, so he immediately turned around and walked out. Later, when he got back home, he took a page from Link’s book and sent a group text calling them all ‘fucking assholes’. He got three apologies and lost two friends, which was worth it for how satisfying it was to call them out.

Rhett was overwhelmed with emotions. Hurt and regret, guilt and loneliness, shame and anger. It was the shame that burned brightest. He would have given anything to take it back, even if that meant Link walked out his door and never came back (and in the part of his brain where he constructed imaginary stories about people who go off the bus, Rhett thought up scenarios where he could convince Link to come back).

People noticed, too. His coworkers asked what was wrong, and nodded doubtfully when he replied with, “Oh, just some personal stuff. Don’t worry about me.” Dana gave him sympathetic looks when she made his lattes to go now that he came down to the cafe late enough not only to miss the arrival of the east-west bus, but the departure of the north-south bus as well, but she never mentioned any of it, and he was thankful.

Losing Link after just a couple months was worse than losing Victor after more than a year, and Link had just barely been his boyfriend. Well, that was just a lie Rhett told himself to try and make himself feel better. It didn’t work.

He drifted through his days. Rhett knew the hurt would get better with time, but that time just wouldn’t come soon enough.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

Rhett walked up the five flights of stairs at his apartment after another day of work on autopilot. Somewhere he’d read that it usually took half as long as the length of a relationship to get over it. He and Link had dated for about two months, in which case that figure was wrong, because he hadn’t spoken to Link in two months, and it hurt as bad as ever. However, if Rhett defined the start of their relationship as when he knocked Link over in the cafe, that was over two years ago, so he still had quite a ways to go.

These were the thoughts occupying his head as he left the stairwell and walked to his apartment. Down the hall, someone was getting in the elevator. This wasn’t unusual, as Rhett was probably the only person who took the stairs. What was unusual was that the person getting on the elevator was tall and slim and wearing obnoxious vintage Nikes.

None of Rhett’s neighbors matched that description. “Link?” he said. The elevator door closed. “Shit.” Rhett dropped his briefcase and yanked open the stairwell door.

“Shit shit shit.” He had no idea if he could beat the elevator. He hoped he could. Rhett ran down the stairs two at a time, glad to have legs as long as he did.

He skidded to a stop at the bottom and slid to a rest against the wall. He pushed off and flung open the door.

Rhett had not beaten the elevator, but Link was still in the entryway. “Link, wait!” Rhett yelled breathlessly as he jogged over. He was ashamed at how out of breath he was.

“Oh!” Link turned around. His cheeks were pink and his hands fluttered around like he didn’t know what to do with them. “I thought you saw me through the peephole and didn’t want to talk to me.”

Rhett shook his head. “No, I just got home. What are you doing here?”

“I came to talk to you. I want--” Link’s eyes narrowed and his expression turned to one of annoyance. “Fuck _off_ , Lauren!” Rhett turned around to see the blonde girl watching them through the cafe window. Link flipped her off and hauled Rhett over to the elevator.

“I’m so fucking sick of them,” he muttered as he mashed the button for the fifth floor.

Rhett snickered. “The day after we broke up, I yelled at Dana and told her I never wanted to hear another word about it from her or Lauren ever again, and if you ever showed up, not to mention it to you, either.”

Link raised an eyebrow. “Wow. That’s not what I would have expected from a nice guy like you.”

“What can I say? You’ve rubbed off on me.”

They stood in tense, uncomfortable silence until the elevator dinged and the doors opened. Rhett walked down the hall to retrieve his briefcase.

“Why is your briefcase in the hall?” Link asked.

“I dropped it so I could chase the elevator. I couldn’t let you leave without talking to you.”

Link watched at Rhett unlocked the door and then followed him in. He looked around the apartment. “Why do you even live here?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” Rhett asked.

Link made an expansive gesture. “It’s so big! You have an eight person dining table. Have you ever had eight people over to eat? Has anyone ever sat in that chair by the window? It’s not like it’s close to your work, either.”

Rhett frowned. Link wasn’t wrong, but… “Did you come over to talk about my apartment?”

“Um. No.”

“I didn’t think so.” Rhett loosed his tie. “I’m gonna go change, then we can talk, okay?”


	17. Chapter 17

By the time Rhett came back in a sweatshirt and some loose jeans, Link was lounging sideways in the big chair by the window, legs draped over the arm.

“I think you really might be the first person to sit there,” Rhett said as he stretched out on the couch. If he didn’t have to share with Link, he was going to take advantage of the full length. There was a reason he’d chosen such a big couch. He was a big man, after all.

Link clapped. “Ha! I knew it.”

An awkward silence descended over the room. Rhett looked at Link, who was turning pink again, and wondered which one of them would break it. On principle, he thought it should be Link. After all, he was the one who had broken his own no contact order. Rhett was a patient man. He could wait.

Link was not patient. He didn’t even last a minute. “So.”

“Yeah?”

“I told you to fuck off.”

“And I did.”

Link dropped his head back onto the arm of the chair and groaned. “And you did. You’re so good, Rhett. I never should have told you to fuck off.”

“What? Link, no.” Rhett shook his head vehemently. “I knocked you over and held you down! Even if you hadn’t told me you always needed to be able to escape, and that bringing you to my apartment after the fire was ‘serial killer shit’, that’s a really fucked up thing to do! I’ve never done anything like that before.”

“Shut up and let me talk.” Link took a deep breath. “So part of doing better is trying to get away from the impulse to just tell people to fuck off. Like, I know I just told Lauren to fuck off when we were downstairs, but that’s not a big deal. On the other hand, telling you to fuck off, without even talking to you, is a problem. And, um, several people called me out on that.”

“At your therapy group?”

Link tapped his fingers on his thighs. “Actually, my coworker Leah was the first one.”

“I thought you didn’t talk to your coworkers.”

“I don’t, much, but she’s the one I like the best and we talk the most. I said I broke up with you because you did something that scared me because of my past and because you’re so much bigger than me, so then we had to go on this little sidequest,” Link put on a pseudofeminine voice. “‘Link, you’re pretty tall, how tall is this guy?’ and that was like ten wasted minutes.”

Rhett held up a hand. “Hold up, she knows you were a prostitute?”

“No, she thinks I went to jail for the baseball bat windshield incident, which isn’t entirely wrong. If I hadn’t come up in front of the same judge for the third time in ten months--”

“ _Third_ time?”

“Yeah, it was a rough year. I mean, I had a record before that, anyway, but the first time was the bar fight with the date rapist, then the smashed windshield, so I had a lot of fines to pay off and I was trying to make some quick money and you know how that ended. Anyway. Leah thinks something happened while I was in jail that was traumatising, and that you did something that reminded me of it. She _also_ thought that I should have talked to you about it before telling you to fuck off. She said that about my last boyfriend, too, but he really was an asshole.”

Rhett raised an eyebrow. “Oh, now I’m curious.”

“Some other time, maybe, but I’ll tell you this.” Link leaned forward conspiratorially. “Man, _fuck_ that guy.”

Rhett snorted. “So who else called you out?”

“Oh, these guys at therapy, Hilario and Aaron. They were like, ‘What stupid shit have you done this time, Link?’”

“Sounds like they’ve got your number.”

“It’s been ten months. I’d be insulted if they didn’t. So what I said was, ‘Well, my boyfriend did something that scared me, and I panicked and told him to fuck off.’ And Hilario is like, ‘Wait, this is the guy that you’re totally in love with and you said made you want to be a better person as soon you met him, and you told him to fuck off?’ and I said yeah, so Aaron called me a stupid fucker.”

“Hang on.” Rhett held up a hand. “You’re in love with me?”

Link’s eyes got big behind his glasses and he flushed bright red. “I… uh… I… I didn’t mean to tell you. At least not like that. Or so soon.” He dropped his face into his hands. “I feel so stupid.”

“Oh, Link.” Rhett wished he wasn’t on the other side of the room, but Link had very deliberately chosen his seat. “Please don’t be embarrassed. I’m… I’m really touched. I’m just not quite there, you know? But I could be.”

“Yeah. I understand.” Link took a deep breath. “Anyway. Moving on for now. After we established that yes, I am an idiot, they told me I needed to talk to you. So here I am.”

“Why didn’t you just text?”

Link laughed. “Oh, that was a deal I made with Aaron. I had to talk to you in person, and he had to go to his daughter’s dance recital, which doesn’t sound like much, except he only found out about her six months ago and he didn’t grow up with his father, so he’s terrified of screwing up at being a dad.”

Rhett thought about his own father. “Just tell him not to say ‘Well, you can do better next time’.”

“Is that what your dad said?”

“Every single time.”

Link grimaced. “Yeesh.”

“So, what did you want to actually talk about?”

“Last time I was here, when you held me down.” Link looked down at his hands. He twisted his fingers together. Rhett wished he had a pen to give him. “I tried to hide it, and I think I succeeded, but it terrified me. I’m not going to go into details, but something similar happened to me before. I was able to get up that time, but you’re so much bigger than me…”

Rhett felt sick. It wasn’t anything he didn’t already know, but hearing Link lay it all out so plainly was difficult. “God, Link, I’m so sorry. I know that can never make up for it, but I am. I never did anything like that before, and I’ll never do anything like that again. I don’t know what I was thinking. I just didn’t want you to walk out of my life, I guess.”

Link gave him a crooked little smile. “The only reason I came back is that I don’t think you’ll do anything like that again, but if you do, I really will walk out of your life. Once I can get up, I mean.”

They both laughed.

“I missed you,” Rhett said.

“I missed you, too,” Link said. “You had something you wanted to talk about?”

“I did?”

Yeah, you texted me and said you did, shortly before I told you to fuck off.”

“Ohhh.” Rhett closed his eyes and rested his head back on the throw pillows. “It was about something from when you were a prostitute that was bothering me. I kind of don’t even don’t want to bring it up now.”

“Please.” Link’s voice cracked. “I want to be with you again. Anything I can clear up to make that…”

Rhett didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t want to see the hurt on Link’s face when he asked. “So, you said you would suck guys off and let them fuck you from behind, because you didn’t think those things were intimate. But… I _do_ think those are intimate, and I’d like to do them with you some day, if you’ll let me. So where does that leave me, compared to your clients?”

Link gasped. There was a scrambling noise and then suddenly he was lying full length on top of Rhett, with his arms wrapped around Rhett’s neck. Rhett opened his eyes to see Link’s unflinching blue gaze. “Never, ever, compare yourself to them,” he whispered fiercely. “ _Ever_. Anything I’d do with you would be intimate, Rhett. I promise. I swear.”

“Yeah?” Rhett pushed Link’s hair back off his forehead.

“Yeah. I never really enjoyed any of that once I got out of the drugs and partying stage. It was just survival, you know? Just another job to make money. But this…” Here he wiggled his hips against Rhett’s, the most physically aggressive he’d been yet. “This is good. Fun. I’m enjoying myself. I’ve got feelings for you. You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time, Rhett, maybe ever. I’m so glad you were willing to talk to me tonight.”

“Link, are you for real?” Rhett shook his head. “I didn’t think you’d ever speak to me again, and deservedly so. _I’m_ the one who’s glad you came over tonight.”

Link kissed him. It sent little electric sparks all through Rhett’s body. “What kind of sad single guy bullshit plans did you have for the evening?”

Rhett slid his hands under the hem of Link’s shirt. He was so warm. “That’s kind of a mean way to put it.”

“Tell me I’m wrong, sad single guy.”

“I’m not sad or single anymore, so there.” He slid his hands higher under Link’s shirt. Rhett knew it was stupid, but there was a little part of him that expected to feel the tattoo under his fingers. “Uh, I was going to make fajitas, watch a couple old episodes of Pushing Daisies, dick around online, find some porn starring skinny guys with dark hair and blue eyes and jerk off, maybe drink some whiskey, go to bed.”

Link sputtered into laughter. “I’m sorry, did you just admit to looking for porn guys who look like me?”

Rhett kissed him. “I’m not ashamed to admit it. I was never into skinny, dark-haired guys until I started seeing you get off the bus.” He trailed his hands down Link’s back, making him shiver, and grabbed a double handful of Link’s ass. “I hope I don’t have to settle for porn anymore, though.”

Link made a soft little noise. Rhett couldn’t tell if it was surprise, desire, or both. “You don’t have to settle,” Link said. He slid a hand down between them and rubbed Rhett’s erection through his jeans, then gave him another crooked little smile. “You don’t even have to wait.”

Rhett thought about that, or tried to anyway, while he occupied his mouth by kissing Link, his hands by kneading Link’s ass, and his dick by thrusting up into Link’s hand. Finally, he managed to come up with, “Okay.”

“Well then.” Link ran a finger through Rhett’s beard. “Here, or the bedroom?”


	18. Chapter 18

They ended up in the bedroom, undressing each other as quickly as possible. Over two years of denied and buried attraction bubbled to the surface. They fell onto the bed, touching and kissing everywhere. Rhett was delighted with how vocal Link was, moans, sighs, mumbled compliments and suggestions so filthy they made Rhett blush bright red.

It was when Rhett had Link cradled in one arm as he fondled him with his other hand that Link broke their kiss and pushed Rhett back a bit. “Stop, stop, just for a second, okay?” he panted a little. “I have to tell you something.”

“Okay.” Rhett was all attention.

“There’s three things you can’t do, okay? Like not even a little.”

Rhett had a pretty good idea of what those things were. “Hold you down, fuck you from behind, ask for a blowjob?”

“Yeah. Maybe one day, but not tonight.”

“We’ll just keep it pretty basic this time.” Rhett agreed, skimming his fingertips over Link’s cheek, trailing down over his jaw. He tilted his face up to kiss him sweetly on the lips. He pulled back, holding his hand up between them. “How about this? You put my hand where you want me to touch you. 

Link stared at him for a moment, trying to determine if Rhett was joking or not. “Seriously?”

Rhett grinned. “Yeah, go on.”

Link rolled his eyes and grabbed Rhett by the wrist, pausing for just a moment to look into his face. He pulled Rhett’s hand down, guiding it between his legs until the tips of his fingers brushed his inner thigh. Link drew in a breath and bit his lip. “Here. Start slow, okay?”

Rhett stared down at Link. He swept his thumb over the taut muscle, carding through the light dusting of hair covering his smooth skin. It was impossibly sexy, the way Link arched his back at the tiny caress. The sight of it made Rhett ache all over. He let his fingers move, slowly, traveling upward, watching Link’s face for any sign to stop. 

Link did not ask to stop. He did not close himself off. He groaned quietly as Rhett’s fingertips left goosebumps in their wake.

“This okay?” 

Link nodded, thigh trembling in response. 

“Will you say it out loud for me?”

Link stretched his legs a little further. “More, _please.”_

Rhett leaned back, taking in the picture beneath him of Link, naked body stretched and prone, legs spread open, cock thick and swollen, leaking wet against his belly. He wasn’t at all the type of guy Rhett would normally have gone for. He wasn’t like Victor, blonde, brooding and imposing. His tattoos and earring would’ve normally turned Rhett off, but now he just wanted to find out how they might taste under his tongue. He was lean, lithe, delicate. He made Rhett feel huge in comparison. 

_He’s so different from anyone else I’ve ever been with,_ Rhett thought.

He was so beautiful, so ready. This was usually about the time that Rhett liked to grab his partner and take control of things. That wouldn’t fly with Link, though. He wanted to play by Link’s rules and do this right. Time to give instead of take.

He placed a palm on each of Link’s thighs, pushing them up, skimming over Link’s muscles, up to his hips, thumbs circling there. He wrapped one hand around Link’s thickness, slowly, carefully pumping his hand up, circling his thumb over Link’s glistening head. 

Link groaned in frustration rather than pleasure. “God damn it, Rhett.” He bucked his hips up, straining against both of Rhett’s hands. “I’ve been waiting to do this for ages. Quit fuckin’ teasing me.”

“Right, okay,” Rhett said. He reached over to grab the bottle of lube and popped the cap open before a generous dollop to his palm. “Just wanna make sure I do this right.” 

“It’s a dick! I know you know what to do with a dick. You _just_ told me you were gonna gonna go look for porn--aah!”

Rhett shut him up by wrapping his hand around Link, tighter this time, delivering a long slick stroke from base to tip, circling his wrist right under the smooth head before pushing back down. He watched Link’s face, mouth parted, tongue sneaking out to moisten his lower lips. Rhett kept his strokes firm, quickening his pace to elicit a whimper from Link’s mouth. 

Link spread his legs further, angling one up toward his hip, the other wrapping around Rhett’s lower back to pull him closer, reaching over to grab the lube. Hand wet, he reached down between them, palming Rhett’s cock, stroking in the same rhythm. 

Link wiggled under him until their cocks were lined up, both of them stroking each other, knuckles brushing past each other with each stroke. 

Link smirked up at Rhett, a crooked little grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Y’know, I wondered what kind of dick a big man like you would have. It’s nice, real nice, but, uh, mine is longer.”

Rhett glanced down to see if that was true, but his train of thought was immediately derailed when Link wrapped his fist around both of their cocks at the same time. Rhett groaned deep, guttural. He was lost in the feeling of Link’s smooth skin, hot flesh, textured veins sliding against his own cock.

 _“Fuck,_ Link.” He reached lower, hand sliding over both of their balls, squeezing, tugging them until they were both panting.

Rhett braced his other arm on the bed next to Link’s head, hovering his body over Link’s smaller frame, bellies not quite touching but close enough that they breathed the same air. He moved to press his lips to Link’s panting mouth. 

Link placed his hand on Rhett’s collarbone and pushed against him until there was more space between them. 

“Rule fucking one, Rhett,” he growled, tense but stroking even harder, faster, grinding his pelvis into Rhett’s for even more friction. Rhett’s face flamed red but he nodded, holding himself up, further away, making room for him to reach down and join his hand with Link’s, stroking their cocks together, slick, hot, both fists tight. He slid his thumb over Link’s head, stroking his slit as Link’s mouth fell open in a low helpless moan. 

Rhett felt the rolling heat at the base of his spine and knew he was close. Watching Link falling apart under him was the hottest thing he’d ever seen. Link tipped his head back, eyes screwed shut, hand squeezing Rhett’s shoulder hard. His back arched, hips stuttering up into the joint grip of their hands. Rhett felt his vision swim, a guttural moan ripped from his throat the moment Link spilled over their hands, months of pure _want_ slamming into him all at once.

He collapsed next to Link, both of them breathing hard. Rhett glanced down at the mess all over their hands. “Wow,” he whispered.

“Yeah.” Link rolled over to face him. Rhett’s boxers had ended up by the pillows, so Link grabbed them and wiped his hand off. Rhett made a face. “You know, I’ve been wanting to do that since I got you on that bed at IKEA.”

“Is that so?” Rhett took the boxers and cleaned himself up. He balled them up and shot them perfectly into the laundry basket. “Yesss,” he hissed in victory.

“It’s true!” Link put an arm over Rhett’s waist and pulled himself closer. Rhett pulled the blankets up over their shoulders and they shared a gentle kiss. It was a tiny perfect warm world on the bed, and they were the only people in the universe. “You’re so gorgeous, and I was pretty sure you were into me. At least, you kept coming back even after I told you to fuck off. That’s pretty much the same thing,” he said matter-of-factly.

“I was totally into you,” Rhett replied. “But I had a boyfriend, and it was, y’know, complicated.”

“Mm. It worked out.” Link snuggled closer. Rhett kissed the top of his head.

“You wanna stay here tonight?”

“Uh.” Link looked up at the ceiling as he thought. “I don’t think I’m ready for that yet. I don’t have any stuff, either.” He pressed his head back against Rhett’s chest. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry.” Rhett hugged him. “Do you know what a sleepunder is?”

“A… sleepunder?”

“Yeah, like a sleepover, except you don’t actually sleep over,” Rhett explained. “When I was little, I had a friend who always wanted to spend the night, but he couldn’t fall asleep anywhere but his parents house. So he’d come over and we’d stay up late, or late for little kids at least, then his mom would get him, and then the next morning we’d all go out to breakfast together. A sleepunder, instead of a sleepover.”

Link was silent for a few long moments. There was a flicker of expressions across his face that Rhett recognized as Link trying to decide whether or not to make a smart comment. He settled on, “I wish my parents had cared enough about me to do something like that.”

Rhett kissed his forehead. “I’ll do it for you. I’ll drive you home, and then we can get some breakfast at the cafe.”

“That sounds nice.” A wicked little grin grew on Link’s face. “I’d rather fuck with Dana, though.” He told Rhett his idea, and they both burst out laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A million thanks to @sohox for writing the smut!


	19. Chapter 19

The next morning, Rhett went down to the cafe a little earlier than had been his recent custom. He was terrible at poker, but not because he didn’t have a good poker face. It was about to undergo a serious test, though.

Dana was all giggly and sparkly-eyed at him, just as he’d expected. Lauren had seen him chase Link down, followed shortly by Link hauling him off to the elevator. Rhett assumed she’d started texting Dana before the elevator doors even closed. He would have been disappointed with anything else.

True to her word, she didn’t say a single thing to him about Link. It was kind of touching, really, and made him feel a little bit bad about what was about to happen.

But only a little.

Dana didn’t have a wig or scarf on today, and instead of the smooth scalp she’d had every other time he’d seen her bare head, she had the beginnings of a very short Afro. It was the perfect jumping-off place for Rhett to start a pointless, wandering conversation.

“Oh, growing your hair out?” he asked as she pulled the shot of espresso.

“Yeah. I cut it all off when I went away to college because it was so hard to keep up with all the relaxers and everything, but I think I’m ready to try again with natural hair.”

Rhett responded with meandering stories about growing his hair, cutting it off, growing his beard, shaving it off, and asked Dana more questions about her hair… his real purpose was to stall for time until the east-west bus pulled up and Link walked past the cafe window. 

Finally, he saw the bus out of the corner of his eye. This was going to be the real test of his poker face, so he launched into his college discovery for the best method of bleaching his hair _white_ white: bleach it, dye it blue, then bleach it again. It would get so damaged that little bits would snap off. It was a pretty funny story, so if Rhett lost his poker face, it wouldn’t be too suspicious.

But Dana wasn’t paying attention to him at all. Her eyes flicked from Rhett, to the window, back and forth. Rhett could actually track Link’s progress down the sidewalk by following her gaze. She was so wound up that she was actually bouncing a little on the balls of her feet.

Rhett continued with his pointless chatter until his phone buzzed in his pocket, He checked his smartwatch--it was a text from Link. He was safely on the north-south bus.

“Gosh, will you look at the time,” Rhett said. “I gotta run. Thanks for the coffee, Dana.”

She made a frustrated noise behind him as he exited the cafe.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When he reached his car, Rhett pulled out his phone.

Text from: Link Neal

(Link): i’m on

(Rhett): dana was DYING

(Rhett): like, i’m shocked she actually made this drink properly

(Link): i bet she can make a latte in her sleep

(Rhett): fair point

(Rhett): i wonder how long we could keep this up 

(Rhett): timing’s tricky

(Link): don’t worry about the timing

(Link): let lauren see us in the evening

(Link): then in the morning

(Link): pretend to dana like i don’t even exist

(Link): i give her two weeks

(Rhett): that’s generous

(Rhett): when happens if you stay the night?

(Link): hm

(Link): i’ll take your keys and go wait in the car

(Link): while you get two coffees

(Link): and act normal

(Rhett): there is no way i could act normal doing that

(Link): but wouldn’t it be worth it though?

(Link): for those few moments you could keep it together

(Rhett): it would be pretty great

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dana didn’t even last a week.

“Rhett!” She slapped her hand on the counter when he entered Thursday morning. “Lauren said she saw you and Link arguing in the vestibule on Monday, and then last night he came over and you went out together!”

“We weren’t arguing,” Rhett said in a mild voice. “Tell Lauren to quit spying on us.”

“No. The vestibule’s public and it gets boring here at night.” She shook her head a little to clear her thoughts. “You’re back together with him.”

“Yeah.” Rhett pulled out his phone and fired off a text.

Text to: Link Neal

(Rhett): Dana cracked

(Rhett): she’s found us out

He looked up. “Sorry about that. Link thought you’d last two weeks before saying anything, but he doesn’t know you like I do.”

“You are an _infuriating_ man, you know that, right?” Dana grinned at him. “I’m happy for you, though.”

Rhett smiled back at her, a little shy for some reason. “Thanks. I’m happy, too.”

“I gotta ask, though…”

“Yeah?”

“You said you did something that he couldn’t forgive. What changed?”

“Honestly?” He held up his hands in bafflement. “I’m not entirely sure. I guess that wasn’t my decision to make. We’re working through some stuff, I guess.”

“That’s fair.” She plonked down the latte in its to-go cup. “Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Hey, I need to talk to you.”

“Then talk to me!” Link spread his arms out wide. He was lying on his yellow IKEA with his feet in Rhett’s lap. Rhett had been rubbing them while they half-watched Parks and Rec. “I am here to be talked to.”

“Well, I guess I mean more that I need you to talk to me.”

Link raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Sounds like you wanna talk about _feelings_.”

“I need to know why you decided to come back. What changed?”

Rhett could tell that Link had some smartass answer like _because I missed you, stupid_ , ready to go as he began his statement, but by the end, his expression had changed.

“Oh. You mean where I was like, hey I can never trust you again, and then I came back and was like, yeah I’m over it now?”

“That was so eloquently put, Link.”

“Thank you.” He rearranged himself on his pile of throw pillows so he could face Rhett better. “Okay, so, you know House Hunters?”

“Oh my _god_.” Rhett was in pain, actual pain. “Are you about to tell me that I’m the pretty good apartment with the long walk to the bus stop that you’re willing to put up with?”

“I’ll grant you, it’s an imperfect metaphor, but bear with me. It’s more like, um…” Link stared up at the ceiling as he tried to put his thoughts into words. “So the people on that show are always rejecting houses for the stupidest reasons, and you watch and think, _oh, you idiot, you could fix that with some time and effort_. That was me. I was the guy who wanted a hardwood floor, but the place had carpet, so he rejected it.”

Rhett rubbed a hand across his forehead. “You’re killing me with this House Hunters bullshit.”

“Sorry. Um.” Link kept his gaze up at the ceiling. “I think you’re just about the best house I could ever find. Better than I ever hoped, for sure. And I got my house, and it was great, then, like, insert some kind of traumatic homeowner shit here, I don’t know, I’ve only ever rented, and instead of even looking into fixing it, I abandoned my house.”

“Your house, huh?” Rhett rubbed his thumb across the top of Link’s foot.

“Yeah. I wanna come home to you.”

“Link.” Rhett’s voice cracked. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me. And it’s weird, which is very on-brand for you.” He felt warm all over. He wanted to come home to Link, too. Someday…

“Yeah? I have a lot of sweet things to say. Been saving ‘em up. I’ve said a lot of awful things to people over the years, it’s time to balance it out.” Link rubbed a foot across Rhett’s thigh, and then spoke very quickly, “You got physical with me, which is usually a nope, the end, get out, kind of thing, and you somehow managed to do it in the most triggering way possible. But you didn’t know that. It was a really weird, tense situation, and we both freaked out. It happens. It could have been worse.”

“Yeah.”

“So I told you to fuck off, and I tried to move on, but I just missed you so fucking much. You don’t even know, Rhett.”

Rhett gave him a skeptical look. “Really?”

Link laughed. “Okay, so you probably do. Anyway, I brought it up in group, just in general terms, and we sort of talked it over a bit. Group moves slow. There’s eight of us, so we can’t spend too much time on person each time, but I talked to Aaron and Hilario about it a lot.”

“They’re your buddies?”

Link nodded. “We have a group text, just the three of us. It’s nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of, you know? Anyway, I eventually decided you were worth the risk. You’re so good, Rhett. Better than I ever dreamed I could have. I really don’t think you’ll get physical with me again, especially now that you know I have a history with it.”

“God, no.” Rhett shook his head. “It makes me sick to think that I made you feel that way, even accidentally. Even if you’re past it, I’m not. I just feel so guilty…”

Link looked at him and pursed his lips. “Sounds like a personal problem. Maybe you need to go to group. Can’t come to mine, though. That would be weird.”

“Huh.” That was certainly a thought. “So you think I’m trustworthy now, and that’s it?”

“Nah. Hilario was like, ‘Bro, I _know_ you know how to fight. That cabron knocks you down again, you do everything you can to fuck his shit _up_!’ which I thought was pretty good advice.”

Rhett huffed an exasperated sigh out his nose. “I’m so glad you have such helpful friends.”


	20. Chapter 20

“Why do you keep doing this?” Link asked softly from inside his blanket nest.

“I don’t know,” Rhett mumbled. He was sitting on the edge of the bed in his boxers, elbows on thighs, head in hand. Link sighed and hauled his blankets along as he slid behind Rhett and wrapped his arms around the taller man’s middle.

“You gotta let it go, man. It’s been _eleven years_ since I did any of that. You _know_ that.” Link laid his cheek against Rhett’s back. Rhett could feel the stubble on his cheek and his warm breath as he sighed. “Maybe I did it in the wrong order. Slept with you first, _then_ told you I used to be a prostitute. No way that could have gone wrong.” There was a little bitterness in his voice. 

Rhett shook his head. “No, you did it the right way. This is all on me.”

“Then how long are you going to keep doing it to yourself?” There was a pause. “And how long are you going to keep doing it to _me_?”

“Link--”

“Don’t ‘Link’ me!” Link pulled away, taking his body warmth and his blankets with him, leaving Rhett cold. “That’s not what I am anymore, that’s not who I am anymore, so do you know how much it fucking hurts to play… like… like… fuckin’ sex Russian roulette or some shit, only instead of a bullet to the brain you get stabbed in the heart every few times ‘cause your boyfriend gets fixated on other guys who fucked you over a decade ago, or convinces himself that you want something in exchange for it? Well, for your fuckin’ information, Rhett, all I want is for you to get your shit together and love me back.” He flung his blankets down and grabbed his clothes. “Fuck! I gotta go. I can’t deal with this bullshit tonight.

Rhett watched without a word as Link got dressed and left. He was right, of course, every word. They’d been going round and round with Link’s past over and over since they got back together. Link didn’t have a problem with it, of course, having lived it ages ago and moved on (at least these days he said ‘I used to be a prostitute’ instead of ‘I’m a whore’, which was pretty good progress in Rhett’s book), but for Rhett, the whole thing was much more recent. He was having a really hard time with it, and Link was rapidly losing what little patience he’d gained over the past year.

It was such a reversal of roles from their first meeting. Rhett had been the one with his act together, while Link was barely keeping it together. Now, Link was getting better and better, while Rhett was losing it emotionally. It wasn’t just Link’s sexual past that bothered him. The knock over/pin down incident still haunted him, although he never brought it up with Link. What had happened? How had he turned into the sort of person who got physical with a partner? Rhett still worried that it might happen again, even though he had literally _just_ watched Link walk out the door after losing it due to Rhett’s reaction to his past-- exactly the same scenario that precipitated the knock over/pin down incident, and nothing happened this time. Well, nothing except that Rhett felt terrible.

And the most terrible thing was that he _did_ love Link back, but Rhett didn’t feel like he could say it until he got his shit together, as Link so succinctly put it.

Link was one of the most emotionally intelligent people Rhett had ever met, which was even more remarkable given his propensity to shoot himself in the foot. Most of his pre-jail stories seemed to involve him making a decision, realizing it was stupid, and then doing it anyway. Jail actually worked to make Link change his ways. He wouldn’t give Rhett many details, other than that the food was so awful he lost fifteen pounds (“Which I didn’t exactly have to lose in the first place.”), but he hated it so much that he swore he’d never go back. It probably helped that Link’s court-ordered anger management from the smashed windshield incident was postponed until his release, so he had at least a little support at the beginning. He’d come a long way.

And Link had given Rhett the answer, in little breadcrumbs trails through their conversations and arguments over the past few weeks. “I can’t manage your emotions and insecurities for you!” an exasperated Link snapped during one of them. _Sounds like a personal problem, get your shit together, maybe you need a group but you can’t come to mine_ …

“Ah, fuck,” Rhett mumbled to himself.

He knew what he needed to do.

It was gonna suck, though.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Text to: Link Neal

(Rhett): you said you had to get better

(Rhett): and i do too

(Rhett): but i need your permission

(Link): are you fuckin serious

(Link): you don’t need my permission

(Link): jesus christ

(Rhett): no i mean

(Rhett): if i go talk to a therapist bc i’m having issues with the fact that you used to do sex work

(Rhett): i need to be able to tell them that you used to be a prostitute

(Rhett): and i’m not doing that without your ok

(Link): oh

(Link): yeah sure

(Link): arrest records are public anyway

~*~*~*~*~*~

Rhett chose a therapist mostly at random, picking a clinic close to his apartment that was covered by his insurance. His appointment was scheduled with one Dr. Wendell Green. Rhett knew it was stupid, but he imagined Dr. Green’s office would be like a New Yorker cartoon: a sterile room with a desk, chair, and couch, where he’d lie with his back to the doctor.

The office did indeed contain a desk, chair, and couch, but it was anything but sterile. There was a bright geometric rug on the floor, semi-abstract art of brains and chemical diagrams (serotonin and such, Rhett assumed) on the walls, a massive pothos vine draped over a bookshelf full of books with titles like ‘Mind Over Mood’, and an aquarium on a table next to the couch.

Rhett loved the aquarium. It was full of green plants and darting silvery fish and tiny red shrimp. He found the gentle bubbling of the filter and the soft glow calming, and a welcome distraction when the discussion turned upsetting. Rhett kind of wanted to set one up at home.

Dr. Green himself turned out to be a portly man in his sixties with close cropped gray hair. He wore oversize sweaters and pants that were just a little too short, so that Rhett could see his bright socks. It seemed like he never wore the same pair twice. If Rhett were to describe him in one word, he would call Dr. Green ‘avuncular’. He laughed easily and had all sorts of little toys on his desk to fiddle with. Rhett liked him immediately.

The first appointment began with Rhett’s history: his family, growing up, education, job, goals. It went smoothly until they started talking about relationships. He gave Dr. Green a brief rundown of his relationship as stomach tightened with anxiety.

“That’s… that’s really what I came to talk about,” Rhett stammered. “Link.”

“What about him?”

“He, um…” Rhett swallowed hard. His face burned with shame. “God, this is hard to talk about.”

“Take your time,” Dr. Green said.

Rhett grabbed one of the throw pillows and hugged it to his chest. He stared at the aquarium and tracked a shrimp as it climbed a leaf. “He used to be a prostitute but then he went to jail and quit and that was like ten years ago so it’s old news to him but I only found out like five months ago so it’s fresh for me and I’m having a really hard time with it,” he blurted out very quickly.

“Mmhm,” Dr. Green said as he scribbled in Rhett’s chart. Either he was excellent at poker, or he’d heard much wilder shit, because he didn’t react much at all. “Anything else?”

Rhett made a helpless noise. “When he told me, we got in an argument and he went to leave and I grabbed his arm and we… sorta wrestled, I guess? Anyway, it ended with him on the floor and I held his arms down, like this.” Here he held his wrists up level with his ears. “And I wouldn’t let him go until he agreed to talk it out with me, and we did, kinda. But then he texted me that he couldn’t trust me anymore and said that if I was really sorry, I should fuck off and leave him alone. So I did.”

“But you’re back together,” Dr. Green observed.

“His choice. He said I was better than anyone he hoped he could ever find, and that it was stupid to run away without even talking it over.” Rhett was surprised to find he was crying. Dr. Green passed him a box of tissues and Rhett blew his nose. “Thanks. Anyway, Link decided it was pretty minor, I guess because a lot of bad stuff has happened to him, but I feel awful about it. I never did anything like that before, and I don’t want to ever do it again. I don’t wanna be the kind of person that does things like that.”

Dr. Green made a few more notes. “Alright. Is that all?”

“Uh.” Rhett thought for a moment. “Yeah, for now I guess.”

“So, to sum up…” Dr. Green held up the chart and read his notes. “You’re having difficulty coming to terms with your partner’s sexual past, and you feel guilt about a confrontation stemming from that which ended up turning physical.”

Rhett blinked. “It sounds so straightforward when you put it like that.”

“I did go to school for that sort of thing,” Dr. Green said. Rhett watched in horrified fascination as he picked up a fidget spinner and gave a flick as he spoke. “It is fairly straightforward, though, compared to some of my other patients, but it’s obviously affecting your life and your relationship, so you need to take care of it.”

Rhett rested the pillow in his lap. “Even if Link and I broke up, I’d need to take care of it. I just feel so...disgusted with myself, I guess.”

“Just based on what you told me today, I’d say you’re already on the right path.” Dr. Green put down the fidget spinner and ticked items off on his fingers. “You’ve already identified your behavior as problematic, you’re genuinely contrite, you’re not doing this because your boyfriend asked or because you’re trying to keep him--you’re doing it for yourself. These are all very good signs.”

“Oh.” Rhett blinked. “You know, Link’s been going to therapy for a while, and a lot of that sounds like stuff that he does. I knew he was rubbing off on me, because I tell people to fuck off a lot more than I used to, but I didn’t realize I was getting his good habits, too.”

Dr. Green guffawed, and Rhett joined him.


	21. Chapter 21

"...so he gave me a piece of zucchini and I dropped it in and they crawled all over it,” Rhett concluded.

“Uh _huh_.” Link left fly with his dart and missed the target completely. It stuck in the plywood panel protecting the wall at Sidekicks. “You do realize that when I asked how your therapy was going, I wasn’t actually asking about whether you go to feed the fish or not, right?”

“The shrimp,” Rhett corrected. “The fish don’t care about zucchini.”

Link retrieved his dart with a yank and slapped it down on the table. His nails were polished a cement gray. He’d been gradually introducing lighter colors for a while in an experiment to see if he bit his nails less now that things were going better for him. The results were mixed. Link grabbed a fry from the basket on the table and pointed it at Rhett. “If you don’t wanna say, that’s fine. Just don’t bullshit me with shrimp.” He stuffed the fry in his mouth and glared at Rhett.

“No, it’s okay.” Rhett took aim with his dart and hit the target, barely. At least he sucked less than Link. “We talked about getting physical.” This was his new shorthand for the knock over/pin down incident.

“Mmhm,” Link mumbled through a mouthful of fries. He swallowed and flung a dart without bothering to aim. It landed just above the bullseye. “Huh, would you look at that.”

“Nice.” Rhett took a sip of his beer. “And, uh, I used to fight with my brother a lot, and I got into it with a couple different people in high school and college.”

Link raised an eyebrow. “You liar, you told me the last time you got in a fight was elementary school.”

“Punching someone in the gut isn’t the same as shoving someone.”

“True, true.” Link swallowed the last of his beer.

Rhett threw a dart. It hit the plastic edge of the dartboard and fell to the floor. “So I kept saying I’d never touched anyone like that before, but that’s not true. There’s… precedent, I guess.”

Link pulled an especially long fry out of the basket and tried to spin it like a pen. He failed. “Probably didn’t help that I hit you, huh?” 

“I’m sorry, what?” Rhett wasn’t sure he heard correctly.

Link looked at him as if he were the stupidest man in the world. “You grabbed my arm. I turned around and punched you on the shoulder, so you took me down.” Rhett looked at him, dumbfounded. “You don’t remember that?”

“No.” Rhett had absolutely no recollection of being punched.

“Oh wow. You really thought you just, like, threw me down for no reason?” Link ate the mangled fry. “No wonder you’ve been not-so-secretly moping about it for six months.”

Rhett stared at him. “How are you so nonchalant about this?” he demanded.

“I’ve been in a lot of fights, Rhett. It freaked me out because it was _you_ , but in retrospect that wasn’t anything. And Hilario was right, I could fuck you up if I wanted to. But I didn’t, so…” Link shrugged and picked up his bottle, only to realize it was empty. “You want another beer?”

“I think I’m good.” Rhett’s head was spinning. He dropped it into his hands as Link went over to the bar. Apparently they had very different interpretations of the same incident. Rhett saw it as an attack, Link saw it as a mutual fight. Where else did they diverge? They were such different people.

Link came back and plonked a beer on the table before wrapping his arms around Rhett. “You know, you could have asked me about this at any point.”

“You were really upset about it at first. I didn’t want to mess it up after you got to feeling better,” Rhett said. “I felt like it was, you know, a personal problem.”

Link rolled his eyes. “You can talk to me about your problems, dumbass. I mean, don’t bring it up when I’m already upset about something, but you shouldn’t hide stuff from me because I’m, uh, you know.” He waved a hand vaguely. “Well, you know how I am.”

“I most certainly do.”

“Anyway.” He hugged Rhett tighter and kissed his cheek. “I’m proud of you, getting your shit together.”

Rhett wrapped his arms around Link and they stood there by the dartboard in the corner of Sidekicks, a basket of cold fries on the table. Part of him was incredibly relieved by their conversation, but another part of him felt like it opened a Pandora’s box of new issues. And, then, of course, were Link’s words ringing in Rhett’s head:

_I just want you to get your shit together and love me back_

~*~*~*~*~*~

After a conversation with Dr. Green about Link’s view of the knock over/pin down incident, Rhett felt better about the whole thing. He still had a little lingering guilt, but he knew it would fade with time.

So that left one more thing that Rhett felt like he needed to handle before he had his shit together: his issues with Link’s sexual history. It was a source of significant strife between them. Rhett loved having sex with Link. He was confident, passionate, sweet, and skilled. It was only afterwards that the problems started. He’d look at Link, all messy hair and limp limbs stretched out luxuriously, and wonder how many people had paid to see that, and how much. Or sometimes he’d feel like sex had been a bargaining chip somehow, something to pay back a favor, or buy one in the future. Rhett knew that wasn’t true, but he still felt it.

It drove Link absolutely insane. Even when Rhett tried to hide his feelings, Link saw right through them. He wanted to talk it through, but Rhett wasn’t ready.

He wanted to talk to Dr. Green about it some first, but Rhett also thought he might need to know more about Link’s past in order to do that. It was a bit of a Catch-22.

Link was being incredibly patient with the whole thing, especially for him. Rhett felt an incredible rush of affection for him each time Link rolled over to scream his frustration into a pillow instead of storming out. It was absurd, but that’s where they were at.

Other than that, things were going well. Link finally agreed to stay the night, so Rhett picked him up on a Saturday afternoon. Link threw an overnight bag in the back of the car and they spent the rest of the day look for treasures at a flea market, seeing the new James Bond movie (okay but not great, they agreed), and going out to a nice dinner before heading back to Rhett’s place.

“What the hell is that?” Link asked as he flung his bag onto the bland couch. He pointed at a glass tank on a wooden stand. It was full of muddy water.

“My aquarium!” Rhett said, hurt. “I’m gonna have shrimp.”

“Of course you are.” Link leaned over and peered into the murky water. “I don’t think you’re doing it right. This is disgusting.”

“Once the dirt settles out I can grow plants for the shrimp to hide in. It’s a process, Link.”

“Yeah, whatever. Get back to me when you actually have something worth looking at.” Link slid his hands up Rhett’s chest and wrapped them around his neck. “I know what you’d rather look at right now,” he whispered in Rhett’s ear. It made him shiver.

“Yeah?”

“Mmhm.” Link took one of Rhett’s hands and guided it down to his crotch. Rhett could feel how hard he was.

“Oh. Yeah. Let’s go to the bedroom.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Link fell asleep before Rhett even turned out the light. He curled up in a fetal position with his hair all over the place and his mouth slightly open. Rhett thought back to the first day they spent time together, at IKEA, and how he watched Link test out the mattress and wondered what he’d look like asleep. Well, now he knew: adorable. Sleep smoothed out all the tension that usually furrowed Link’s brow, and he looked much younger.

Rhett hadn’t shared a bed with anyone since he broke up with Victor, who was an expansive sleeper. Compared to him, Link seemed small and delicate. Rhett turned off the light and fit his body around Link’s, careful not to wake him. They fit together perfectly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Further reading: the incel who stopped being an incel because he fell in love with shrimp. https://i.redd.it/xotecsb1iq621.jpg


	22. Chapter 22

Rhett was alone when he woke up. For a moment, he thought that maybe Link had snuck off in the night, but his jeans and hoodie were still on the floor. Rhett could hear the coffeemaker spluttering in the other room, so he got up and brushed his teeth before going out.

Link was sitting on a stool at the breakfast bar with an as-yet-untouched cup of black coffee steaming in front of him. He turned his head as Rhett came in. “Hey. I made enough for you.”

“Thanks.” Rhett hugged him from behind and thought about the last time Link slept at his place, on the night of the apartment fire. Was it really over two years ago? It seemed like it was simultaneously both ages ago and only moments ago. He thought about how much happier Link seemed now, and how much happier _he_ was, too.

He leaned over and kissed Link on the top of his head. Link’s hair smelled the way it always did, like coconut and vanilla. “I love you,” Rhett said. He did, and Link deserved to know. Just because Rhett was still straightening some things out for himself didn’t mean that Link should have to wait in limbo forever. It wasn’t fair.

Link inhaled sharply and twisted around to look up at Rhett. “Yeah?” He gave Rhett a crooked little smile. His expression was hopeful, but with a little apprehension, like he thought maybe Rhett would change his mind.

“Yeah.” Rhett leaned over and kissed him. The angle was awful, so he stepped back and spun the stool around so Link faced him. “I do.”

Link stood up and threw an arm around Rhett’s neck, pulling him down into a deeper kiss. “I love you, too, Rhett. More than you know.” He laughed. “I was thinking about the last time I stayed over here. I was so fucking scared.”

“Because you thought your apartment was burning down?”

“Well, that too, I guess.” Link grabbed his Waffle House mug and took a sip. “Mostly I was scared of fucking up somehow. You were so nice to me! You picked me up and bought me nail polish and let me crash here, and all that after I told you to fuck off a couple times. So I figured you were pretty special and maybe you’d be my friend if I actually put some effort to not being an asshole to you. I didn’t want to fuck it up.”

“You _were_ a lot nicer to me after that.” Rhett took the mug and grimaced as he swallowed the black coffee.

“Get your own fuckin’ cup.” Link snatched back his coffee. “It worked, didn’t it?”

Rhett looked down at the two of them. They were in underwear and t-shirts, with their arms wrapped around each other. It was all he ever wanted. “Yeah, it sure did.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“So I got a question,” Link said. He was sprawled out on his yellow couch. “And if you don’t wanna talk about it, that’s fine, but I’m curious.”

“Shoot.” Rhett was lounging in the armchair, eating a bowl of cherry tomatoes, much to Link’s disgust. “Pretty sure I know what you’re going to ask about, though.” He’d been working with Dr. Green on his issue with Link’s past for a few weeks, and he knew it bothered Link that he wasn’t involved.

Link tilted his head to the side. “Why don’t the other guys bother you?”

That wasn’t actually the question that Rhett was expecting. He blinked. “What other guys?”

Link gave him the _you idiot_ look. “My exes, all the guys I ever hooked up with. You never say anything about them. It’s only the guys who paid, right?”

“Uhh…” Rhett popped another tomato into his mouth and chewed while he thought. “I guess?”

“So what’s the difference?” Link sat up and crossed his legs. “This is a sincere question. I’ve had sex with way more guys for free than I ever did with guys who paid.”

“I don’t know.” Rhett rolled a tomato around between his fingers. “In theory, I don’t have an issue with it, but with you, it’s personal. I don’t like thinking of you that way.” He’d been over this point more than once, and usually Link would yell at him in exasperation.

But tonight, Link surprised him. “You ever been hungry?” he asked, looking down into his lap. “Like real hungry, because your rent is due and you have a bunch of bills to pay, but you can’t buy any food because you’re broke because you got fired _again_ for fighting a coworker or something. You’re angry all the time and you get fucked up on drugs and make a bunch of stupid decisions. You can’t fix stupid and you gotta get money somehow, and selling yourself is awful but it’s quick and easy, and you already hate yourself so who cares?”

He lifted his head and looked into Rhett’s eyes. “Well?”

“No,” Rhett breathed. “Link, you never said any of that before--”

“Ugh!” Link threw his hands in the air. “I didn’t want you to know how fucking pathetic I was, okay? I know I made it sound like a casual side job or whatever, but I did what I had to do so I wouldn’t end up homeless.”

He took a deep breath. “I’m just gonna spell it out for you, okay? I didn’t enjoy it. I hated every second. I never came with any of those guys. I didn’t do any ‘boyfriend experience’ shit. For the most part, I was completely detached. That’s why I did those two things, sucking dick and getting fucked from behind, so I wouldn’t have to look at them. And you know I’d rather top, so that was another way of separating it from my real life.” 

Link’s face was bright red and Rhett couldn’t tell if he was going to burst into tears or start yelling. Or both. That was always a possibility. “So now you know all the shitty details. And it’s over, Rhett! It’s been over for years. I’m never going to be in that situation again. Now it’s up to you to decide if you can live with that or not. I don’t have a choice, I _have_ to live with it, and if you wanna be with me, you’re gonna have to live with it, too. But you have a choice.”

Rhett sat his bowl of tomatoes down on the table and sat on the couch with Link. “I made my choice a long time ago, Link. You know that,” he murmured as he wrapped his arms around Link, who was as tense and brittle as a wire about to snap. “If I hadn’t, would I still even be here? Would I be working on getting better? I love you, Link. I’m not going anywhere.”

Link melted into his arms and took a deep, shuddery breath. “I love you, too.”

“C’mon, let’s go lie down,” Rhett said. The yellow couch was too small to hold them both. Link’s bed was better, barely.

“Shoulda got a bigger bed,” Link mumbled as they folded themselves onto the bed.

Rhett snickered. “I told you so.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Link relaxed a tiny bit. “So, um… I… do you…” He sighed. “Are we okay?”

“Yeah.” Rhett kissed the back of his neck. “I kinda wish you’d told me all that before, though. It clears up a lot of things for me, I guess.”

Link was quiet for a few moments. “I didn’t think you were ready,” he said finally. “It’s a lot to take in. I mean, look at you, Mr. Successful Engineer Guy, all nice and clean cut. What could you possibly see in someone like me? I’m such a fucking disaster, Rhett. Shitty childhood, barely got through college, arrested four or five times, sex, drugs, and rock and roll, prostitution, went to jail, got so many traffic tickets that my license was revoked...that’s not even all of it. Surely you understand why I was scared to tell you the worst of it.”

“You’re not a disaster,” Rhett said. “Or a fuckup, or a whore, or a slut. Maybe you used to be, but not now.” He gave Link a little shake. “And I don’t want you talking about yourself that way anymore, okay? You’re worth more than that.”

“Okay.” Rhett could tell Link was smiling a little.

“And you never lied to me,” Rhett continued. “Yeah, sometimes you didn’t give me the whole truth, but you never lied. And your past made you who you are. Resilient, resourceful, determined, brave, stubborn...that’s you. My Link. I love you.”

Link rolled over and faced Rhett after some awkward repositioning. “I love you, too. I know I call you ‘nice’ a lot, but really I think I mean ‘kind’. You’re thoughtful and giving and patient. You treat me better than anyone ever treated me in my life, and it’s not because I’m special. You just treat everyone well. You made me want to be better ever since you bribed me with dinner. So that’s why I love you, I think. You make me want to be better, but you gave me a chance even before I started.”

“You are too special,” Rhett said. He squirmed uncomfortably. “You wanna head back to my place?”

“Yeah. This bed is too small to fuck on.”


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A million thanks to @sohox for writing this chapter! You know what that means.
> 
> (it's smut)

By the time they made it back to Rhett’s apartment, they were both burning so hot they could barely keep their hands off of each other. Link stole the opportunity at every red light they hit to lean over and kiss Rhett, dirty and wet, until they were both breathing hard. More than once the person behind them had to beep their horn to get Rhett driving again. 

The moment they were inside Rhett’s apartment, Link pressed the full length of his body tightly against Rhett, working his way as close as possible, fingers finding their way quickly under Rhett’s shirt. He pulled it up, breaking their kiss just long enough to get it out of the way. Rhett loved the way Link kissed when he was all worked up, like he was starving for Rhett, like only the taste of Rhett’s mouth could satisfy a primal craving deep inside of him. 

“Bedroom,” Rhett growled into Link’s mouth, both hands reaching down to palm Link’s ass through his jeans. 

Link nipped at Rhett’s lips before pulling away, tearing his own shirt off. He tossed it at Rhett, surprising him as it hit him softly in the face as he backed away toward the bedroom. 

Rhett followed, and by the time he reached him, Link was kicking off his shoes and working his jeans open. Rhett came up behind him and wrapped his arms around Link’s slender waist and pressed his face against Link’s neck. His hands roamed over Link’s chest as the smaller man worked his jeans down over his hips, letting them hit the floor. 

Rhett mouthed along Link’s neck, sucking hard on his pulse point, nipping his way along to his ear. “I want you so badly,” he whispered, biting the soft lobe, worrying it between his teeth. 

Link groaned, pushing his ass back into Rhett and grinding against him. He pulled away just enough to turn around, hands snaking up over Rhett’s shoulders to press their chests together. He used one hand to grab the soft curls at the base of Rhett’s neck, the other hand dropping down to make short work of his jeans, popping the button and slowly sliding the zipper down over Rhett’s aching bulge. He tugged Rhett toward him, licking into his mouth as he slid his hand into Rhett’s boxers and got his hand on his thick cock. 

“I’ve been dreaming about this.” He pushed Rhett’s jeans down roughly before guiding Rhett back onto his bed. “Wanted it for a long time now.”

Rhett settled back onto the bed, his hard cock resting heavy against his belly. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Link as he crawled up the bed, knees nudging Rhett's legs apart to make room for him to settle in.

“Link, wait, you don’t have to...” Rhett hesitated for just a moment before Link turned his eyes up at him and skewered him with his blue gaze.

“They’re my fuckin’ rules, Rhett. I can break ‘em if I want to.” He paused. “Unless you don’t want me to?” Rhett shook his head dumbly. 

“Well, then.” Link wrapped one hand tightly around the middle of Rhett’s throbbing cock. Rhett groaned loudly, his back arching just enough to push himself up into Link’s hand. Link licked his lips, eyes still locked on Rhett’s face. Rhett didn’t dare look away. 

Link slowly pumped his hand, his thumb skating up along the underside of Rhett’s shaft, catching a bead of precum and spreading it over his cock until it glistened with wet. They both stared, watching Link’s hand as if it had a mind of its own. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Rhett noticed that Link’s nail polish almost exactly matched his eyes.

Link leaned in closer, tongue darting out to lick his lips again, eyes peering up at Rhett under heavy, dark lashes. He held Rhett’s cock tightly in his fist, brushing the swollen head over his bottom lip, spreading Rhett’s precum over his smooth pink flesh. 

“ _Fuck,”_ Rhett hissed, straining not to buck up and ruin this moment. It was almost too much, seeing Link in front of him, the combination of his painted blue fingertips against Rhett’s cock, his stunning blue eyes staring him down, and his sweet swollen lips, bruised from their kisses, wrapping around his head. 

They both groaned, Link’s tongue swirling around his tip, allowing Rhett to slip even further into his hot, wet mouth. He pulled off entirely, allowing Rhett to slip out just long enough to stroke him once, hand gathering wetness to allow him to pump his cock smoothly. Rhett allowed himself to thrust his hips against the sensation, hands going to his own hair, pulling at the short golden curls. 

“I’m gonna fuck you,” Link said, matter of factly before dipping back down to engulf Rhett in his mouth again. Rhett couldn’t hold back the filthy moan that escaped him, reaching one hand down to caress Link’s hollowed cheek. He slipped his thumb down to rub at Link’s bottom lip, to feel how it stretched over his thick shaft. Link sucked even harder, taking Rhett deeper. He grew bolder, pushing Rhett’s thighs even further apart, testing his own limits of how much he could take. 

Link once again pulled off entirely, pushing one of Rhett’s thighs upward, spreading him wide open. He mouthed at Rhett’s balls for just a moment, looking back up at his face. 

If Rhett hadn’t known any better he would’ve thought that the look on Link’s face was almost _bashful._ But the way he leaned down, licking a wet path right over Rhett’s puckered hole was anything but shy. 

Link broke their eye contact to focus his full attention on licking hotly over Rhett’s entrance, his other hand stroking Rhett’s straining dick, pumping in time to the motions of his probing tongue. 

Rhett’s body shuddered at the feeling of Link’s tongue, the slick friction causing waves of heat to creep over his body.

“Rhett, gimme the lube.” Link ordered, pausing his ministrations just for a moment before tonguing at Rhett again. 

Rhett stretched over to the drawer, blindly grabbing for the bottle before tossing it down the bed toward Link. His back arched off the bed as Link sucked particularly hard at the space right behind his balls. 

It wasn’t lost on Rhett, just how much Link was giving him by doing this, how far they had come over the last few months. It made his heart ache, that warm heavy feeling in his stomach spreading throughout his body. 

Link grabbed the bottle, pouring the cool liquid generously into his hand, slicking up his middle finger, spreading the gel around Rhett’s tight hole. He teased Rhett, dipping his finger in and out, feeling the flesh twitching under his touch. 

“ _Fuck_ , Link,” Rhett groaned. “Are you just going to tease me all night?”

Link huffed out a laugh before he pushed his finger all the way in. Rhett tilted his hips down, trying to get him even deeper. Link gave his finger a couple more pumps before adding a second, angling them just right. Rhett’s whole body shuddered, hips rocking against the delicious feeling Link was drawing out of him. 

“I could do this all day,” Link’s voice was low, eyes fixated on watching his fingers disappearing in and out of his boyfriend's body. Rhett let out a low keening sound, his head falling back against the pillow. It was all too much and not enough. “Link, fuck me, _please.”_

He didn’t have to ask twice. Link sat up on his knees, squeezing another dollop of lube into his fist, coating his cock from base to tip. He pressed his swollen head against Rhett’s entrance, locking eyes with his boyfriend again as he pressed forward. Rhett felt the ring of muscle pass over every inch of Link, tightness giving way as he bottomed out. 

Rhett leaned forward, propping himself up on one arm, the other reaching forward to clasp around the back of Link’s neck, pulling him forward in a kiss, tasting himself on the other man’s tongue. Link growled into Rhett’s mouth and pulled his hips back before snapping them forward again, fucking into Rhett hard and fast. 

Rhett could barely think straight, the wet slide of Link’s cock inside of him was incredible He was sure he’d never get over the feeling. He tilted his hips up, wrapping his legs around Link’s waist to pull him in even deeper. The change of the angle had Link slamming into his prostate over and over. Rhett felt like he couldn't catch his breath; instead he just kept licking into Link’s mouth, vision swimming as he took everything Link could give him. 

“I love you.” He whispered against Link’s mouth. Link’s hips stuttered into him, trying his best to keep it together, to keep moving. 

“I love _you_ ,” Link growled back, reaching down to wrap his hand around Rhett’s cock, fisting it roughly to match each stroke of his hips.

He felt Link’s words surge through him, the feeling slammed into Rhett all once, white hot heat spreading out from where they were joined, up his chest, to his face. He felt himself clenching down on Link inside of him, felt himself spilling over Link’s fingers, his warm come making the slide of Link’s hand even more slick. 

He watched Link’s face, eyes more black pupil than blue iris, mouth falling open as his own orgasm slammed into him. Rhett felt his entire body shudder at the feeling of Link spilling hot inside of him. 

Link’s arms finally gave out and he collapsed against Rhett’s chest. Rhett wrapped his arms around him, carding his hand through Link’s hair and holding him close as both their racing hearts slowed and panting breaths evened out. 

“So…” Rhett began hesitantly.

“You know those rules were mostly for you, right?” Link said. His tone was slightly defensive.

“What?”

“Well, not the ‘no holding me down’ one,” he admitted, “but the other two were because I knew you’d, um, conflate things. But hopefully now you believe me that anything I do with you, even if it’s what I used to do with clients, is special because it’s _with you_.”

“Yeah,” Rhett said. He kissed Link’s forehead. “I think I got that now.” 

“Good. I’d be pretty fuckin’ pissed if you didn’t.”


	24. Chapter 24

“I can’t believe this,” Link hissed. “Does this building have a back door?”

Rhett rolled his eyes and opened the door of the cafe. “You’ll be fine. It’s just Dana.”

Dana glanced over as they entered and did a double take. A delighted grin covered her face and she leaned over the counter. “Heeey guys! How’s it going?”

“Hey, Dana,” Rhett said. “Can I get it for here this time?”

“Sure.” She started pulling the espresso shot and looked around Rhett’s shoulder at Link. “What about you?”

“Black coffee, and I guess a chocolate chip muffin. Thanks.” Link fled to the furthest corner of the cafe as soon as Dana handed him the muffin on a plate.

“Is he okay?” she quietly asked Rhett. She drew a leaf on his latte with the milk foam.

“He thinks you’re gonna ask him a bunch of questions, like you do to me.”

Dana made a face as she poured a cup of regular coffee for Link. “I don’t know him well enough to do that anymore. Even when he came in for dinner when I worked evenings, we never really talked that much.”

Rhett took the two cups of coffee and sat with Link. “She’s not gonna hassle you,” he said as he put Link’s mug in front of him. Link glanced over at the counter.

“Then why’s she taking a picture of us?”

Rhett turned to the counter, too. Dana froze. “You’re just so cute! I had to show Lauren.”

Link flipped her off as Rhett threw back his head in laughter. “Oh, that’s even better,” Dana said as she took another picture. “Much more accurate.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Anyway, he said he didn’t tell me before because he didn’t think I’d want to be with him if I knew it all upfront,” Rhett said.

“Do you think he was right?” Dr. Green asked. He handed Rhett a slice of cooked carrot and Rhett dropped it into the aquarium.

“Probably,” Rhett admitted. The cherry shrimp began to gather around the carrot. “I hate that it’s true, but if he told me he went to jail for prostitution that first day we hung out, I would have kept my distance.”

“How are you doing now?” Instead of a fidget spinner, Dr. Green had a coil of plastic curves that he twisted around and around itself.

“Fine, actually.” Rhett thought knowing more about Link’s past would make things worse for him, but he was surprised to find it had the opposite effect. “It’s been a couple weeks and I haven’t freaked out after sex once, even when he gave me a blow job, and that was one of his three rules because it was a client thing.” He could tell he was blushing furiously. “Why is that so embarrassing to say?”

Dr. Green shrugged. “You’ve told me a lot more intimate things than that. Wanna drill down?”

“Not really. I don’t think it’s that big a deal.” Rhett looked down at his boots. “That’s about it, I guess.”

“Good, because we’re about out of time.” Dr. Green pulled up a schedule on his computer. “When do you want to come back next? Two weeks again? A month?”

“I don’t really think I need another appointment,” Rhett said. “I’m pretty satisfied for now.”

“I’m glad to hear that, Rhett. Of course, you always know where to find me if you need me.” Dr. Green closed Rhett’s chart and held out his hand. “Now, give me that bag.”

Rhett pulled a quart size ziploc bag out of his pocket and handed it over. Dr. Green pulled out a little net from the cabinet under the aquarium. He filled the bag halfway with water and scooped up the carrot slice along with eight or ten shrimp.

“They breed pretty easily,” he said as he zipped up the bag and handed it to Rhett. “You’ll have dozens in no time.”

Rhett held up the bag and looked at the shrimp. “Dr. Green, thank you so much. For the shrimp, and everything else.”

“My pleasure.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Learn to drive, asshole!” Link flipped off a Tesla as it cut off Rhett and sped through a yellow light.

“Stop that,” Rhett reached over and slapped Link’s hand away from the window. “Quit with that backseat driver road rage bullshit. Remind me again how many tickets you got for driving like that, and how much you still owe in fines?” Neither was a small number.

Link grinned at him. He was in an extraordinarily good mood, and his vicarious road rage was mostly ironic. “I don’t think I’m gonna get my license again after I pay off my fines.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have road rage and I drive like a fucking idiot,” Link said, as if it where the most obvious thing in the world. “I get along fine with the bus, and now I have you to drive me around.”

Rhett glanced over at him. “You don’t think you’d be a better driver now? You’ve made so much progress otherwise.”

“I dunno. Maybe?”

“You should get your license just to have it,” Rhett continued. “You don’t have to buy a car, but you should be able to drive legally. You know, just in case.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. That’s not gonna be for a while, though.” Link leaned his head back on the headrest. “God, I’m so ready to go home. This trip was amazing, but I’m beat.”

“Me too.” They were returning from their first trip together, a long weekend at a national park a few hours away. Camping, hiking, mountain biking, roasting marshmallows, sharing a sleeping bag… it was a little cliche, but cliches were classics for a reason. It was a wonderful trip.

“So, uh, your place or mine?” Rhett said. The two men bounced back and forth from apartment to apartment. It was sort of a Goldilocks situation: Rhett’s apartment was too big and impersonal (although it was getting better all the time. In Rhett’s opinion, the addition of shrimp was a significant upgrade), and Link’s apartment was cozy and homey, but too small.

Link looked down. He had a parcel wrapped in newspaper in his lap. “Your place,” he said. The parcel contained a present for Rhett. Link found it at a little roadside junk store they’d stopped at, hid it behind his back, and made Rhett wait outside while he purchased it. Rhett was intensely curious.

“You got it.” Rhett stopped at a red light and leaned over to kiss Link. God, he loved him so much. Link complimented him perfectly: intense where Rhett was laid back, impulsive where Rhett was cautious, bold where Rhett was reserved. Their personalities brought checks and balances to their relationship, and they grounded each other.

Link looked at all the gear in the back of the car as Rhett pulled into his parking space. “Let’s leave all this crap in here for later.”

“Agreed.” Rhett grabbed his backpack and Link followed with his overnight bag and the newspaper parcel. When they got to the apartment, they dumped their bags on the floor. Link held out the parcel.

“Here.”

Rhett took it. It felt like it might be a coffee cup. Curious, he carefully unwrapped the newspaper.

Inside was a little white ceramic house, which was indeed about the same size as a coffee cup. It was hollow and had tiny doors and windows cut out. A small chimney sprouted from the roof. It looked handmade. Rhett held it up and inspected it.

“I think you’re supposed to put a candle in it,” Link said, “to make it look like there’s a fireplace inside. But I got it for your shrimp.”

Rhett blinked in surprise. “You got a house for my shrimp?”

Link’s lips twitched into a smile. “House Hunters: Shrimp Edition. But they only get one choice.”

“I love it. It’s gonna look so good under those leaves, like a little cabin in the woods.” Rhett held the little house in front of the aquarium, trying to decide on a placement. “I thought you didn’t like the shrimp, though. You called them ‘creepy little underwater bugs’ the other day.”

“They _are_ creepy little underwater bugs,” Link said primly. “But you like ‘em, and I like you so…” He held up his hands in surrender.

Rhett pulled him close and kissed him. “I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Link flopped down onto the couch and watched as Rhett submerged the little ceramic house in the aquarium and tucked it under one of the lush plants. The shrimp ignored it.

“Hey, Rhett?” Link said hesitantly. “I have a question.”

“Shoot.” Rhett collapsed on the couch and laid his head in Link’s lap. Link combed his fingers through Rhett’s hair.

“Do you ever, um, think about living together? I mean, it’s been almost a year, and we spend so much time together. It just seems like--”

Rhett grinned and interrupted him. “That sounds good. I’d like that.”

“Yeah?” Link gave him a shy, crooked grin.

“Sure. We can’t both live at your place, but would you want to live here?”

Link looked around Rhett’s apartment. Even with his decorating influence, it was still fairly gray and bland. The only rooms that really felt lived in were Rhett’s bedroom and the kitchen. “I think I’d rather have a place that was new to us, so we can make it _ours_ , you know?”

Rhett reached up and placed his hand on Link’s cheek. “I’d love to wake up next to you every day.”

“Remember when I told you that you were the best house I could find, and I wanted to come home to you?” Rhett nodded. “The more time I spend with you, the more I want it. And my lease is up in a few months, so…” Link shrugged.

“So you figured you’d bring it up and see where I stood so you could start making plans?” Rhett finished for him.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“What would you do if I said no?” Rhett asked curiously.

“I dunno. I was pretty sure you’d be okay with it. I just didn’t know if you’d be okay with it being soon, or it you wanted to wait longer.” Link twisted one of Rhett’s curls around his finger.

“Soon is good,” Rhett said. “I can break my lease pretty easily, so that’s not an issue.”

Link raised a skeptical eyebrow. “A fancy place like this doesn’t huge penalities for breaking the lease?”

Rhett shook his head. “Nope. I was surprised, too. I’m pretty sure they just raise the rent each time a new tenant moves in.”

“Ooh.” Link’s eyes grew wide. “That’s kind of evil.”

“Maybe we can find somewhere closer to your work. Or at least somewhere where you don’t have to take two different bus lines.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Link brushed his thumb across Rhett’s cheekbone. “I think having to transfer buses worked out alright.”

Rhett laughed. “Yeah, I guess it did.”


	25. Chapter 25

“Rhett! I have something to show you!” Dana pulled her phone out of her pocket and scrolled through some pictures as he came up to the counter. “Check this out.”

Rhett took the offered phone and looked at the image she’d pulled up. It was a picture of Victor’s house taken from across the street. Victor’s beloved cherry red Subaru Impreza was parked out front with the entire driver’s side caved in. Victor stood next to with his hands on his head in dismay.

“What the fuck,” Rhett said. “How did you get this picture?”

Dana took the phone back, touched the screen a couple times, and handed it back.

Text from: LoLo

(LoLo): [img]

(LoLo): isnt this rhetts shitty cheating ex

(Dana): omg it is!

(Dana): hahaha

(Dana): fuck that guy

(LoLo): some drunk asshole just hit his car

“LoLo?” Rhett asked.

“Lauren. She was at her cousin’s house and they heard the crash and when they went outside she recognized him.”

Rhett sent a silent thanks up to heaven that Lauren had never seen him visiting Victor’s house. “Man, he loved that car more than anything.” _More than me?_ He remembered something Victor said when Link’s apartment caught on fire.

_It’s probably karma._

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“I’m so excited, Rhett! It’s gonna be like House Hunters.” Link grinned at Rhett from the passenger seat. They were on their way to look at a potential apartment.

“Oh god.” Rhett would have closed his eyes in a plea for patience if he hadn’t been driving. “Why would you even say that?”

Link put on his best narrator voice. “Rhett is an engineer and Link is a bookkeeper. They’re moving in together after dating for a year. Link doesn’t drive, because he’s a fucking idiot with no license, so their new place needs to be close to his job or the north-south bus line. Rhett’s really fucking tall, so he’s looking for a shower that he doesn’t have to stoop in. Their budget is--”

“Stop, stop, please.” Rhett shuddered. “Ugh. The only good episode of that show was the one with the drag queen guy who just roasted all the houses.” He pulled up in front of their target and parked.

“Fingers crossed,” Link said as they got out. “Location’s good, price is good, the pictures looked good online....I have high hopes.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Those fucking pictures were _not_ accurate,” Link hissed as he threw himself back into the car. “What the fuck.”

“I’m pretty sure those were pictures of a different unit with the same layout,” Rhett said.

“Well, fuck ‘em. Let’s go get burgers.”

“Seriously.” Rhett took the car out of park and drove off.

~*~*~*~*~*~

They looked at six apartments in total.

“I take it back, Link,” Rhett said as he sorted through printouts of listings. “If we were on House Hunters, at least we’d only have to choose between three. And we’d have a realtor to help.”

“Told you.” Link reached over and plucked one of the pages from Rhett’s hand. “This one was my favorite. It has a fireplace!”

“The fireplace doesn’t work,” Rhett reminded him. “It’s bricked up.”

“Still cool. The bus stop was really far away, though.” Link handed the paper back to Rhett. “Which one do you like?”

“The one with all the built in shelves, I guess.” Rhett pulled out the listing and put it on top. “A few blocks from the bus stop, shower head’s high enough, the kitchen is ugly but the layout is good. My main issue with it is that it would make my commute longer.”

“By fifteen minutes!”

“There’s a big difference between twenty minutes and thirty five,” Rhett said. “You’ve been riding the bus too long.”

“My commute is forty five minutes now, fuck you very much. Thirty five minutes would be great.” Link frowned. “I’m not sure how long it would be from this place.”

“Tomorrow after you get off work, you should ride the bus there, and then I’ll come pick you up,” Rhett suggested. “Then you’ll know.”

“That’s a really good idea.” Link narrowed his eyes at Rhett. “How did you get so smart?”

Rhett shrugged. “You liked this place too, right?”

“Yeah, it’s probably the best one. Honestly, I don’t care nearly as much as you, Rhett. I’ve lived in some god awful places. As long as you’re there, I’m good.” He thought for a moment. “And I don’t want bedbugs.”

“Me neither.” Rhett slid the rest of the printouts off to the side. “So are we agreed?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Link leaned over to kiss Rhett. “I can’t wait.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dana handed Rhett a little white envelope.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“My graduation announcement,” she said. “I’m having a big party afterwards. You and Link are invited. My uncle’s making ribs. He’s assistant pitmaster at Smith Sisters, so you know it’s gonna be good.”

“Smith Sisters, huh?” Smith Sisters BBQ was Rhett’s favorite. He flipped the envelope over. It was addressed to him and Link. “I see you’ve put a heart between out names instead of an ampersand.”

“I can’t draw an ampersand.” Dana tapped her fingers on the counter. “I have something to tell you, though.”

“What?”

“I’m moving away in a month so I can go to grad school. I’m gonna miss you, Rhett.”

Rhett raised his eyebrows. “That’s a hell of a coincidence, because I’m moving, too.”

“You’re moving in with Link?” Dana clapped her hands with glee when Rhett nodded. “I’m so happy for you!”

“I’m happy for you, too.” Rhett held out his arms for a hug. Dana barely came up to his shoulder. He realized something. “I can’t believe I never asked this, but what are you going to school for?” If she said psychology, he was going to scream.

“Psychology. I want to be a therapist.”

“Oh,” Rhett said weakly. “I know you’ll be great at that.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Rhett unlocked the door to the new apartment and gestured to Link. “After you.”

Link entered and looked around slowly. The apartment had hardwood floors and built in bookcases lining the walls under the windows. Two bedrooms, a full bath with a tub and shower, in unit laundry, a kitchen with matching appliances, air conditioning. “Rhett, this is the nicest place I’ve ever lived.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Link’s voice was thick. He pulled off his glasses and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “It is.”

“Link.” Rhett pulled him close. “It’s okay.”

“I know it’s okay.” Link’s voice was muffled against Rhett’s sweatshirt. “It’s more than okay.” He pulled back and looked Rhett in the eye.

“Don’t you understand? Before I met you, I thought my life was as good as it was ever going to get. An okay job I could keep, my own place that wasn’t a slum, not getting into too much trouble...after everything I did before, everything that happened to me, that was pretty great. But I was miserable, I hated myself, I was awful to everyone. And I met you, and you were the opposite of all that, and you liked me anyway. That made me want to be better, and look at my life now! It’s not perfect, but I’m so much happier, and I’m going to live in this awesome apartment with my boyfriend who is sweet and smart and gorgeous and patient. I love you so much, Rhett.”

“I love you, too.” Rhett pulled him for a deep kiss. “You’re still the same person you were before, though. May I remind you, last weekend, when we were at Target and that woman finished her drink and dropped her cup out of her window in the parking lot, you called her a ‘miserable fucking littering asshole’ and threw it back in and got ice all over her.”

“Yeah, well, _fuck_ her.”

They laughed together in their wonderful new apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblrs:  
> @pinecontents  
> @soho-x


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